They built a movement on sharing, then they tried to own it. 🎁⚖️ We investigate the civil war inside the Buy Nothing Project, a hyper-local gift economy that grew to 7 million members before imploding. We break down the conflict between the founders' desire for a centralized app and the volunteer admins who accused them of "commodifying kindness."

1. The "Gift Economy" Boom: We analyze the origin. Founded to fight consumerism, "Buy Nothing" groups operated on a strict code of hyper-local gifting (no trading, no cash). We explain how this "Circular Economy" model successfully diverted millions of items from landfills by relying on the unpaid labor of community admins.

2. The "App Trap": It’s not about community; it’s about data. We expose the pivot. Realizing they were building engagement for Facebook for free, the founders launched a proprietary Buy Nothing App. We discuss the backlash from users who saw this as a move to harvest behavioral data and monetize their altruism.

3. The Trademark Bully: Who owns a movement? We explore the legal battle. When local groups refused to migrate to the app, the founders threatened them with Trademark Infringement for using the name "Buy Nothing." We ask: can you legally own a philosophy of generosity, or did they destroy the village to save the brand?.

The full list of sources used to create this episode can be found on our Patreon under https://www.patreon.com/c/Morgrain