The internet has evolved everything from how we communicate with each other, to how we purchase products online. It has revolutionized commerce and created new industries which operate solely online. Witnessing this evolution we ask ourselves, what’s next? I believe the internet will evolve business much further. I believe a revolution transforming “the way” an online business operates will occur.

A Web Hosting company’s mission is to house websites (e-commerce, blog, etc). Anyone who has a website online has a hosting account at a web hosting company. There are millions upon millions of web hosting customers currently housed at these companies. What would happen if these customers had the ability to speak and interact with each other on an internal social network regarding their service? We have seen the benefits of social networks and we have also seen the growth of the web hosting industry. I believe these 2 types of businesses can merge and become organized under the member owned cooperative association business model.

In business, there are several types of business models. LLC, INC, NonProfit, Cooperative Association. Each business offers really unique benefits to both the employees and the customers. Just as the internet has evolved LLC, Corp, and NonProfit, I believe the internet will also allow cooperative associations to evolve. A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise”. I believe that this kind of business model can evolve to become digital and operate solely online with the main role as a web hosting provider.

Imagine merging a social network within a web hosting company and ran as a digital cooperative association. All customers would be able to talk with one another who share the same service, vote, and help direct the direction of the company. Customers would be able to petition for new features and services and be added so they don’t have to switch hosting providers to get the service they want.

Every company will tell you how important it is to listen to their customers. We have all seen how social networks can benefit or cripple a business. Usually, this is determined by how well the business listens to their customers. Ever wonder what business would be like if the customers had more say in their service? Not just a simple suggestion which can get ignored, but one that could actually have a legal binding impact and force the company to change direction? Maybe you might want just a simple button that does a unique function added inside your online control panel or maybe you want the company to add a new service altogether.

Let’s say, you as a member of a digital web hosting cooperative association, and want a new feature added inside your control panel which allowed you to view your website traffic from the homepage. First, You would submit a petition through the control panel. This petition is then viewed by all other members of the service when they log in. Members can then vote on the petition. If the petition gets enough votes and achieves the threshold, then the petition will be placed on the agenda for the publicly viewed monthly director meeting for final approval or veto. Directors will hold a monthly online webinar where they discuss all petition’s details. During the meeting, Directors will have the opportunity to review and discuss the petition. They then have the opportunity to decide if they want to allow or veto the request.

Sometimes a director may want to veto a request because they find that the request may hinder the company in some way. An example would be if members decided to vote to lower the price of their service beyond a maintainable price. If this request is implemented it could hurt the company. If by any chance a director has to veto a petition then they have to formally write a response and describe the reason why they vetoed the decision. All members will have the opportunity to vote on the response, to determine the validity of the veto. Members still have full authority and can overturn that veto with a ¾ majority on a revote of that response.

If a request is approved, then it will be added to the publicly available company roadmap. When a new feature is added to the roadmap all members will be able to track its progress while in development through an inverted project management system that can be accessed from inside of their control panel. Members will be able to comment on the project status, view code, and make suggestions for that feature during the development process of their idea.

In the process of evolving technology, digital cooperatives can also plan a new way for how our monthly online director meeting will occur. Digital cooperatives could evolve online meeting technology by adding new features to online video conferencing software. Robert’s rules of order are very important in official meetings and they could plan on digitizing this process and pushing through online conferencing software. Members will have the ability to view where on the agenda the meeting is, what they are discussing, and have options for interacting with the organizers. Members will have the ability to 2nd, motion, and all other interactive options offered through traditional robert’s rules of order, within the control panel.

Let alone, having the opportunity to have a say in how the company operates, imagine having the availability to speak to other members who offer the same service as you. What if you could get advice from another member of the service who offered the same service or sold the same product you did? Or maybe get advice from someone running the same kind of software for your e-commerce website is running? There are many yet to be discovered benefits of this kind of service. The potential for growth is astonishing.

Now the above sounds interesting to some but what about developers?

Developers will actually find this business model very intriguing. Imagine a developer having the opportunity to petition new kinds of cloud hosting configurations for the service to automatically provision.  Let’s say they want to petition a whole new service that they need and find out that they were not alone and that other developers in the community want the service also. This business model will accommodate their needs. They would not need to build it on their own and the digital cooperative would be able to pre-provision their needs.

The best part that developers will like is that they will have a say in how the development of the digital cooperatives internal software is coded. Since the development of the software will be shown through an inverted project management system, then they will have the opportunity to make suggestions, view code, and submit suggested code to the project within this system. If a developer submits code and contributes to the project they will be awarded credit toward their service. All digital web hosting code will remain open source.

Good service always starts with the customer in mind first. This idea will revolutionize what it means to be a customer. Customers will have rights and have the opportunity to not only determine what happens with their data but also decide the future of their service.