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Comment by ryandrake

21 hours ago

This is a huge problem with many cases of “just do something.” The minute it looks like a money making opportunity, or something that can be arbitraged, someone will inevitably turn it into a business and scale it up and now it’s no longer That Cool Community Thing. It’s yet another extractive business.

Someone tried to organize a street fair near me, did public outreach for months, and a week before the date a business owner a block away from the street fair contacted the city with a fake list of all the local businesses who said they hadn’t even known about this and it would destroy them, and the city didn’t issue the final permit. No event. (The list was known to be faked because some of the business owners listed were publicly supporting and advertising the event). So that’s the other problem with “just do something” - other people hate you and if you don’t already know the right people and how to be believed over the wrong people, you won’t get something done.