Hello Friends,
My name is Will Bright, I’m a Co-Founder of Massdrop, GH lurker since ‘08 and member since ‘12. Yesterday we purchased Geekhack.
I learned about the sale thread on Monday morning, and my first reaction was.... Wut? Like many thread participants, I was surprised to see this and concerned with the potential outcomes. I’ve spent my entire life in enthusiast communities, and I’ve seen many great communities disperse because of dramatic changes in ownership or management. On Monday, I feared Geekhack would meet a similar fate. From there, I called a meeting of our founding team to discuss purchasing Geekhack with the primary goal of preserving it.
There’s a lot of great stuff about GH, some would argue there’s garbage stuff about GH, but I think it’s hard to debate the dedication and sense of community created by the mods and long-term members of this community. In purchasing Geekhack, our goal is to support that dedication and empower the moderator team to continue improving the community you’ve all invested so much to build.
We’re not making any immediate changes. All rules, standards, processes, and regulations are the same this week as they were last week, and will be the same next week, and the week after, etc. We’re not making GH an advertising platform. We’re not interested in playing favorites with vendors or group buys. We are making no changes to the moderator or admin team.
This change in ownership should affect a 0% change in your GH experience.
That said, GH won’t remain the same forever, it shouldn’t. Communities are organic, they grow, they evolve. The key from our point of view is to support that growth, rather than direct that growth. We’re working with the mod team and dedicated community members to learn more about where the community is headed and what we can do as owners to facilitate that growth. Rest assured, any notable changes will be the result of community supported initiatives, not the will of some distant actor.
By this point, hopefully you’re feeling cautiously optimistic, but you’re probably looking for the catch. How does Massdrop as a business benefit from buying GH if we’re not changing anything to monetize the site? Having a place for people to dive deeper into Mechanical Keyboards helps Massdrop create better products and leads to people being bigger Massdrop customers.
Geekhack is where Mechanical Keyboard enthusiasts can develop their knowledge and create projects together. The community needs a place for that, and we’re excited to help GH continue as that platform.
Best,
Will
P.S. My GH signature was one of the first Massdrop brand assets we made in 2012 and we’re still helping folks manage large group buys today : )
