There are a couple of governance systems in the world. Parliamentary democracy, direct democracy, anarcho syndicalism, etc.
With its decentralized nature, mostly free movement between communities and instances, which governance system would be closest?
Part of the reason why I’m arguing against economic terms is because it doesn’t really give context into the power dynamics in how an instance is run. At the core of most instances on Lemmy, a head admin dictates the rules of their instance and it is take it or leave it for everyone else that wants to participate.
Think of it like this, if the head admin wanted to make a decision against all other admins and mods, what would happen? Likely, which has happened previously to other instances on Lemmy, the head admin wins out and everyone else either conforms or has to leave. Labor doesn’t become ownership.
Unless an instance has a corporate structure which distributes power, it is an autocracy by definition.
The big difference here is freedom of association. In the real world, your life depends on being accepted into that group or migrating to another place while having huge losses and problems due to it later on.
I’m not sure i agree because an admin can also be protested against and they can share ownership (i did that as well). Its not as black and white imo.