In 2022, Tribe — a popular community platform used by thousands of creator communities, nonprofits, and business communities — was acquired by a company called Bettermode.
The acquisition was, by most accounts, a reasonable business transaction. Bettermode needed a product. Tribe had users. The deal made sense.
For the organisations running communities on Tribe, it made a different kind of sense.
"None of these options were the option they originally chose."
What Changed.
Bettermode migrated Tribe communities to their platform. The interface changed. The pricing changed. The product direction changed. Features that Tribe communities had built their engagement strategies around were deprecated or significantly altered.
Community admins had options. They could migrate to Bettermode's new platform. They could attempt to export their data and migrate to a different platform. They could, in some cases, accept the new terms and carry on.
None of these options were the option they originally chose.
The Cost of Being on the Wrong Side.
The cost isn't just the migration work. The cost is the community disruption. Members who had to re-register on a new platform. Members who didn't. Engagement patterns that reset. Years of community history in a format that didn't fully migrate.
For communities built on a platform they don't own, acquisition is a risk that exists whether they think about it or not.
What Rooted Looks Like.
Here's what the acquisition didn't affect: organisations that owned their community infrastructure.
Their code didn't change. Their data didn't move. Their members didn't experience any disruption. The acquisition was news they read about. Not a crisis they managed.
Platform ownership isn't protection against every risk. But it is protection against this one — the most common, most predictable, most expensive risk in the community platform space.
"The acquisition was news they read about. Not a crisis they managed."
Is your community rooted or rented?
If you're not sure, that's the answer.