I don't want it to be a business
I've had a lot of ideas over the years, many for things that would be good for my local community, for my city. I've acted and followed through on some of them. I've started and petered out on others. At this moment, none of them are ongoing.
When I'm toying with any of these ideas, I'm often thinking about how I could turn it into a real business, that makes money, one that I could put sustained effort into. But for most of the ideas, the business-side is a distraction from the work that actually matters, and makes the idea require far more work.
Consider my idea for a website that features local thrift stores. We have like 10 or more in my town of 70,000ish people. What I want is to go take photos of the thrift stores, and put up web pages for each one, with hours, addresses, and such. The simplest way to maintain this over time is to have a contact form where people can report changes to hours or new thrift store openings and closures, and then I just check in on it from time to time and make occasional updates as needed.
This would be really useful for me personally, and probably for quite a few other people. I estimate 4-6 hours of work per thrift store to take & sort photos, talk to the owners, and write up & publish details.
Then it's something that can just sit there and be useful. Or it could be turned into a business. I could add a facebook marketplace-type feature, except where some thrift stores sign up as middle-men. I could add an online store for high-value items at local thrift stores. I could etc etc etc.
This idea is a good idea that would be helpful, and it doesn't need to be a real business. It's something to make, then let sit and just be useful. The business-ification ideas could also be useful, but they're just not necessary.
Consider my other idea, a local journalism site. I built it, and then I did local political journalism for a year and a half before my mental health tanked and I had to give it up.
All of the business-side of things make it worse. Journalism is made worse by advertising. Journalism is made worse by profit incentives. Journalism is made worse when trying to maximize viewership over focused, quality reporting.
But journalism is an ongoing thing that you can't just let sit and move on. You have to keep showing up, writing, publishing. You can't do this work without some kind of material support. It sucks that it has to be a business.
Even just asking for donations does nothing to improve the core work. It adds a layer of business-management that is not journalism.
But the money-making side is basically non-negotiable in our society as it is, unless you're a trust-fund kid or have familial support. I do have familial support - a house to live in, and a very small amount of spending money. But it's not enough, not for building a life long-term. Not for developing some level of self-sufficiency. Not for meeting all of my basic needs, particularly access to culture, social activity, and social acceptance.
It's just frustrating. It's frustrating that we live in such an abundant world, with so much food, with so much shelter, and yet things that are important for our society can't exist without all this extra overhead of business-and-money-crap.
There definitely are ways in which the business-side can actually improve the product. This is especially true for physical products, where you have to actually make a good product in order to sustain what you do. It can even be true for journalism, where you need good reporting that is also approachable and readable and interesting for the public at large. It can be a positive feedback loop. But, in many ways, the business-ification of everything just sucks. And frankly, I just hate the work of the business crap. It's not the part that I'm ever interested in.