overall I feel a lot more work is needed in establishing some sort of commons framework.
I very much agree, and there are some compelling projects happening in that space as well:
Getting VC firms on-board is a tough sell, though. Their model intrinsically involves getting a greater return than the up-front investment, usually through centralization, quasi-monopoly, and rent-seeking. The low hit-rate of breakthrough successes makes the perverse incentive all the stronger: VCs need unicorn cash-cows, to offset and subsidize the failures. At best, exit-to-community would be a mechanism to cut losses on investments with a small-but-loyal userbase, but without enough revenue to be truly profitable from the VC's perspective.
the big idea is that after a few such iterations startups will focus on solving the core fundamental issues of the target market rather than build out a bunch of infra. IMO this would reduce capital cost for newer startups in the same field, that should impact the incentives but its subtle.
also, who know if all the work is out in open maybe some new startup would get an idea to put things together in a entirely new way. just imagine if BeOS we opensourced when it went under instead of letting it rot in some server.
