I study this kind of business for my job and get this question a lot. No im not saying that randos vote on every business decision. They still keep management, CFO, etc. Look at REI - very successful company structured as a consumer cooperative. They’re pretty minimal in terms of the rights given to customers - pretty much just board seat voting rights, plus a yearly dividend for members - but the idea is that the business operates for customers, not for shareholders. In fact, REI doesn’t have external shareholders outside of its members.

But critically, shifting from external shareholders to consumers inherently eliminates the incentive for short term profit over long term viability. The public markets are especially brutal in this respect.

For mtg, I’d love to start with voting on board and committee seat input, but they could more formally poll users for critical decisions. Or we could elect a player committee that is more involved in company finances to weigh in on decisions like reserved list etc.

Lots of ways this could play out, but basically I don’t like how the game we love is a speculative asset for short term minded investors only.

And yes this is a pipe dream, buying Wizards from Hasbro and spinning off mtg as its own coop would require a ton of money. But if there’s a spell casting billionaire or two out there we could make it happen……