Trees not profits: we're giving up our right to ever sell Ecosia (2018)

Search Experience & Comparisons

• Several commenters use Ecosia as their daily search engine; most say it’s “good enough” but not best-in-class.
• Compared to Google: weaker for local queries (“food near me”), less emphasis on fresh news, but some users like that; others fall back to Google for hard queries.
• Compared to DuckDuckGo/Qwant: roughly similar quality; improvements noted after Ecosia began mixing in Google results.
• One commenter perceives Ecosia as “less censored” than DDG/Google at a quick glance.
• Commenters note Ecosia’s results are largely powered by Bing/Google/Yahoo, with ads from Yahoo/Microsoft.

Paying for Search/Email & De-Googling

• Long subthread on people paying for privacy‑oriented services (Kagi for search; Fastmail, Proton, Tuta, Soverin, purelymail for email).
• Motivations: avoid ads, avoid Google, better UX/performance, support sustainable business models.
• Mixed experiences with self-hosting email: technically possible but reliability, blacklisting and spam issues push many back to hosted providers.

Steward-Ownership & German Corporate Forms

• Question on what “steward-owned” means in German law.
• Explanation: Ecosia uses a structure where a gGmbH (public-interest entity) owns almost all economic rights, while founders retain most voting rights, with veto rights against altering that setup.
• Discussion compares this to foundations (Stiftung), co-ops, CICs, L3Cs, and debates pros/cons of having a foundation or trust as a holding entity for a GmbH.

Non‑Profit, Compensation & Transparency

• Skepticism about headlines like “we’ll never sell” and “no profits taken”: concern that high salaries or related-party consulting could still enrich insiders.
• Back-of-the-envelope math on payroll suggests average compensation in the mid five figures EUR/year, seen as not obviously excessive for Germany.
• Some report bylaws capping salaries at “commonplace” German levels and note that no one earned above ~100k EUR in a recent year.
• Debate over whether non‑profit leaders earning high pay is problematic: some insist good salaries should be normalized; others want full salary disclosure and external auditing.

Trees, Climate Impact & Verification

• Multiple commenters ask for independent verification of tree-planting numbers and their ecological impact, referencing widespread greenwashing in “plant a tree” schemes.
• Some doubt tree planting as a primary climate lever and would prefer investments in solar, nuclear, or other climate projects, or even open‑source funding.
• Others note Ecosia has begun funding broader climate projects (e.g., solar) and typically works via local partner organizations rather than planting directly.
• Forestry‑savvy commenters add nuance: in many contexts safeguarding land and natural regeneration (and fixing overgrazing/land use) matters more than raw sapling counts.

Business Model: Search Engine + Tree-Planting

• Some find the combination “non‑profit tree‑planter + search engine” confusing; others explain: it’s simply ad revenue from search diverted to environmental projects.
• Discussion on whether there’s real synergy: one view is that it’s just “donation with extra steps”; another is that switching search engines is far lower-friction than donating money, so net impact is higher.
• Ecosia is praised for transparent financial reports, listing monthly payouts, partners, and regions.
• Mention that Ecosia has partnered with Qwant and is working on its own index, seen as positive for search diversity.

Legal Enforceability of “Never Sell” & Governance

• Several commenters stress that “legally binding and irreversible” promises are limited: bankruptcy, restructuring, or rogue trustees can override many constraints.
• Lawyers in the thread explain that most jurisdictions won’t fully preserve such restrictions through insolvency, and non‑bankruptcy workarounds (trusts, special share classes, giant non-transferable shareholder bases) have edge cases.
• Benefit corporation / public benefit structures are mentioned as partial tools, but their enforcement in practice remains uncertain.
• Comparison with OpenAI’s original non‑profit promises leads to calls for stronger, testable legal frameworks or even new corporate forms.

Meta‑Discussion on Skepticism & Tech Culture

• One subthread criticizes the HN tendency for engineers to hear a model like Ecosia’s and immediately spin out elaborate failure scenarios, assuming they’ve spotted issues nobody else has.
• Others defend skepticism toward what is, effectively, a marketing blog post, but agree that constant cynicism is exhausting and can obscure genuine improvements over status quo ad‑tech.