I agree with you. Hypothetically, anyone can ‘compete’ by providing an alternative offering. But realistically there are barriers to entry. (I know that I wouldn’t be able to put on a conference or run an online forum without lots of outside funding and expertise.) Maybe we could make an argument that there are some competitors with CEA’s services (such as Manifest, AVA Summit, LessWrong, Animal Advocacy Forum) but I suspect that the target market is different enough that these don’t really count as competitors.
Of all the things that CEA does, running online intro EA programs would probably be the easiest thing to provide an alternative offering for: just get a reading list and start running sessions. Heck, I run book clubs that meet video video chat, and all it takes in 15-45 minutes of administrative work each month.
On a local/national level, maybe university/city group support could realistically be done? But I’m fairly skeptical. My informal impression is that for most of what CEA does it wouldn’t make sense for alternative offerings to try to ‘compete.’
I agree with you. Hypothetically, anyone can ‘compete’ by providing an alternative offering. But realistically there are barriers to entry. (I know that I wouldn’t be able to put on a conference or run an online forum without lots of outside funding and expertise.) Maybe we could make an argument that there are some competitors with CEA’s services (such as Manifest, AVA Summit, LessWrong, Animal Advocacy Forum) but I suspect that the target market is different enough that these don’t really count as competitors.
Of all the things that CEA does, running online intro EA programs would probably be the easiest thing to provide an alternative offering for: just get a reading list and start running sessions. Heck, I run book clubs that meet video video chat, and all it takes in 15-45 minutes of administrative work each month.
On a local/national level, maybe university/city group support could realistically be done? But I’m fairly skeptical. My informal impression is that for most of what CEA does it wouldn’t make sense for alternative offerings to try to ‘compete.’