In my view the Cooperative idea is a non-starter, if its stated goal is to take .ORG away from ISOC and leave ISOC with nothing. This does more to muddy the waters than to to clarify them -- though it is a great way to get attention.
ISOC never said it didn't want to run .ORG. And there's no reason to believe that the Ethos sale was contemplated when the contract was renewed. As for the price caps, ICANN has been the primary driver for removing them, by getting all registries on the 2013 agreement. There are legitimate reasons for concern about the transaction, but these are not. These are distractions.
As a matter of good governance, ISOC had to consider the concerns arising from largely relying on a single source of income. It's not unheard of, but it's best avoided. (See footnote) ISOC had no choice but to consider whether it would be a more responsible steward of its mission (
https://www.internetsociety.org/mission/) by changing this situation, e.g., by selling PIR. I assume this has long been on ISOC's mind. That does not mean that this sale to this buyer is the right decision -- but it provides much-needed context.
Simply losing .ORG would be incredibly destructive of ISOC's mission and operations, and would be the worst possible outcome from an ISOC governance standpoint (and every other ISOC standpoint). It's interesting that Dyson et al. are making a proposal that would essentially bury ISOC. It's certainly not an outcome that ISOC would or could ever put on the table.
I would not jump to the conclusion that a sale of PIR is counter to the interests of any other non-profit, much less every other non-profit. Ethos Capital is largely an unknown factor. Whatever their strategy, their goal is almost certainly to increase the value of PIR. Driving away its customer base will do the opposite. Ethos may be able to make investments in PIR that ISOC could not (e.g., turning PIR from a consumer of back-end services to a provider of back-end services), and which would make PIR a stronger company.
That said, I'm still skeptical about Ethos Capital. I have plenty of experience with the private equity world and its hard to imagine any PE (Private Equity) firm as the ideal home of .ORG. On the other hand, PE firms have many different approaches, and we can't jump to the conclusion that Ethos will repeat some other PE horror story. (And there have been numerous PE horror stories, along with even more numerous PE success stories.) Their stated approach provides some comfort, though it's too vague and too oriented toward loose "promises" rather than binding commitments. Their current investments (all minority holdings which may have been contributed to the PE fund rather than originated by it) are fairly standard tech investments that do not reveal any public interest orientation.
As for community resistance, a lot of it still seems ill-informed and may well be driven by "special interests" wielding the "community" as a tool. The resistance is likely sincere on the part of many non-profits, based only on the information they've been fed and concerns about Ethos arising from lack of information. (For a fascinating and disturbing example of non-profits being manipulated to lobby against their own interests, see the article about the Energy industry and NAACP chapters at
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/business/energy-environment/naacp-utility-donations.html.) And who knows if the opposition is "widespread"? It's noisy, and its gotten attention, but that's not the same thing...
On paper the sale of .ORG is a Good Thing for ISOC; in reality, it's only good for ISOC if it's good for .ORG. From an individual end-user perspective, how do we define what "good" means and how do ensure that, if the sale happens, it's good for end-users (and if it's not good for end-users, it shouldn't happen)? That is where we need to focus our efforts.
Best regards,
Greg
Footnote: Cooper Union, the storied engineering school in New York, is largely dependent on rent from the land it owns under the Chrysler Building. For decades, this allowed Cooper Union to be tuition-free, but costs outstripped revenue, deficits mounted. Cooper Union was in a bind and roundly criticized for this over-reliance, particularly when they started charging tuition for the first time in history. Fortunately, they had renegotiated the lease during the real estate boom of 2006 with a schedule of future rent hikes that went from $7.8 million in 2017 to $32.5 million in 2019 (and then $41 million in 2028), and they are on the road to recovery. But there's no such pot of gold at the end of the .ORG rainbow.)