Our Neighborhood Knowledge Has Value — It’s Time for Nextdoor to Share It
The Issue
We, the undersigned Nextdoor users and neighbors, pledge to voluntarily pause providing new business reviews, recommendations, ratings, and other business-related feedback on Nextdoor until the company establishes a meaningful Neighbor Value-Sharing Agreement that recognizes the value of the information and time its users contribute.
Nextdoor's value doesn't come from technology alone.
It comes from neighbors.
We recommend restaurants.
We tell people which plumber showed up on time.
We share experiences with contractors.
We answer questions about local businesses.
We recommend doctors, landscapers, mechanics, stores, insurance agents, and service providers.
We spend our time responding when another neighbor asks:
“Does anyone know a good ______?”
One recommendation may take only a few minutes.
Multiply those minutes by millions of neighbors and years of conversations, and they become something much larger:
A valuable collection of hyperlocal human knowledge.
Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia has publicly discussed the strategic value of the company's many years of neighborhood knowledge and the opportunity to use AI to make that information more useful.
We believe that creates an important question:
If our information helps create economic value, shouldn't the people creating it participate in that value?
We Are Not Asking Nextdoor to Stop Making Money
Quite the opposite.
We want a financially successful Nextdoor.
A healthy platform needs revenue to employ people, develop technology, operate infrastructure, improve safety, serve businesses, and deliver returns to shareholders.
But the platform, businesses, and the neighbors whose participation makes the network valuable should be in a healthier balance.
Nextdoor can monetize advertising.
Nextdoor can sell products and services to businesses.
Nextdoor can develop AI-powered products based on knowledge accumulated across its network, subject to its terms and applicable law.
But neighbors should be able to ask:
Where do we fit into the economic equation?
Our Time Is Valuable
Market-research companies routinely compensate participants for their time and opinions.
Companies pay for surveys.
They pay for focus groups.
They pay for interviews.
They pay for consumer panels.
Why?
Because human experience has value.
A neighbor's recommendation is human experience.
A detailed response about a contractor is human experience.
A comparison between two local businesses is human experience.
And the time spent creating that information has value.
Calling it “user-generated content” doesn't make the human effort behind it disappear.
Therefore, We Are Asking for a Neighbor Value-Sharing Agreement
We aren't prescribing one specific compensation system. We are asking Nextdoor to develop a transparent model that meaningfully recognizes neighbor contributions.
That could include direct compensation for opt-in research, contribution rewards, platform credits, revenue-sharing programs for qualifying commercial uses, benefits for highly valuable contributors, greater controls over commercial reuse of contributions, or other approaches developed in consultation with neighbors.
Most importantly, Nextdoor should clearly explain how neighbor-generated information creates value, how it may be used in commercial and AI products, and how neighbors can participate in that value.
Until Then, We Pledge to Pause
Until Nextdoor announces and implements a meaningful Neighbor Value-Sharing Agreement, we pledge to voluntarily refrain from creating new business reviews, recommendations, ratings, and business-related feedback on Nextdoor.
We're not asking anyone to harass businesses.
We're not asking anyone to post false information.
We're not asking anyone to interfere with another person's use of Nextdoor.
We're simply choosing whether to contribute our own time and knowledge.
If someone asks:
“Can anyone recommend a good plumber?”
We can choose not to answer on Nextdoor.
If we're asked to review a restaurant, we can choose not to review it there.
If we're asked about our experience with a contractor, we can choose not to contribute that information to the platform.
Our participation is voluntary. So is our decision to pause it.
Neighbors should, of course, keep sharing information when safety, emergencies, missing persons, lost pets, severe weather, or another urgent community need makes it important. This petition is about the commercial value of routine business recommendations and feedback—not withholding information that could protect someone.
This Could Actually Make Nextdoor Stronger
This isn't necessarily an anti-Nextdoor proposal.
It could become an opportunity.
Imagine Nextdoor becoming one of the first major neighborhood platforms to say:
“The people creating our knowledge should participate in its success.”
Imagine an opt-in Neighbor Research Panel where people are compensated for detailed insights.
Imagine businesses paying for legitimate access to consumer research while participating neighbors receive a portion of that value.
Imagine AI becoming a tool that doesn't simply extract more value from years of human contributions, but creates a new economic relationship between the platform and the people who helped build its knowledge base.
That could be innovative.
That could differentiate Nextdoor.
And that could give neighbors another reason to contribute.
Our Information Has Value
Nextdoor built the platform.
Neighbors built the conversations.
Nextdoor created the distribution.
Neighbors created the recommendations.
Nextdoor developed the technology.
Neighbors contributed the experiences.
Those things can coexist.
This isn't about claiming ownership of Nextdoor's technology or asserting legal ownership over information governed by Nextdoor's existing terms.
It's about something much simpler:
Recognizing value.
Our information has value.
Our experiences have value.
Our recommendations have value.
Our time has value.
If that value is increasingly going to be monetized, particularly through advertising, business products, research, or AI, we believe the people helping create it deserve a meaningful place in the economic conversation.
Add Your Name
I pledge to pause providing new business reviews, recommendations, ratings, and other routine business-related feedback on Nextdoor until Nextdoor implements a meaningful Neighbor Value-Sharing Agreement that recognizes and shares the economic value created by neighbor contributions.
We created the knowledge. We should participate in its value.
1
The Issue
We, the undersigned Nextdoor users and neighbors, pledge to voluntarily pause providing new business reviews, recommendations, ratings, and other business-related feedback on Nextdoor until the company establishes a meaningful Neighbor Value-Sharing Agreement that recognizes the value of the information and time its users contribute.
Nextdoor's value doesn't come from technology alone.
It comes from neighbors.
We recommend restaurants.
We tell people which plumber showed up on time.
We share experiences with contractors.
We answer questions about local businesses.
We recommend doctors, landscapers, mechanics, stores, insurance agents, and service providers.
We spend our time responding when another neighbor asks:
“Does anyone know a good ______?”
One recommendation may take only a few minutes.
Multiply those minutes by millions of neighbors and years of conversations, and they become something much larger:
A valuable collection of hyperlocal human knowledge.
Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia has publicly discussed the strategic value of the company's many years of neighborhood knowledge and the opportunity to use AI to make that information more useful.
We believe that creates an important question:
If our information helps create economic value, shouldn't the people creating it participate in that value?
We Are Not Asking Nextdoor to Stop Making Money
Quite the opposite.
We want a financially successful Nextdoor.
A healthy platform needs revenue to employ people, develop technology, operate infrastructure, improve safety, serve businesses, and deliver returns to shareholders.
But the platform, businesses, and the neighbors whose participation makes the network valuable should be in a healthier balance.
Nextdoor can monetize advertising.
Nextdoor can sell products and services to businesses.
Nextdoor can develop AI-powered products based on knowledge accumulated across its network, subject to its terms and applicable law.
But neighbors should be able to ask:
Where do we fit into the economic equation?
Our Time Is Valuable
Market-research companies routinely compensate participants for their time and opinions.
Companies pay for surveys.
They pay for focus groups.
They pay for interviews.
They pay for consumer panels.
Why?
Because human experience has value.
A neighbor's recommendation is human experience.
A detailed response about a contractor is human experience.
A comparison between two local businesses is human experience.
And the time spent creating that information has value.
Calling it “user-generated content” doesn't make the human effort behind it disappear.
Therefore, We Are Asking for a Neighbor Value-Sharing Agreement
We aren't prescribing one specific compensation system. We are asking Nextdoor to develop a transparent model that meaningfully recognizes neighbor contributions.
That could include direct compensation for opt-in research, contribution rewards, platform credits, revenue-sharing programs for qualifying commercial uses, benefits for highly valuable contributors, greater controls over commercial reuse of contributions, or other approaches developed in consultation with neighbors.
Most importantly, Nextdoor should clearly explain how neighbor-generated information creates value, how it may be used in commercial and AI products, and how neighbors can participate in that value.
Until Then, We Pledge to Pause
Until Nextdoor announces and implements a meaningful Neighbor Value-Sharing Agreement, we pledge to voluntarily refrain from creating new business reviews, recommendations, ratings, and business-related feedback on Nextdoor.
We're not asking anyone to harass businesses.
We're not asking anyone to post false information.
We're not asking anyone to interfere with another person's use of Nextdoor.
We're simply choosing whether to contribute our own time and knowledge.
If someone asks:
“Can anyone recommend a good plumber?”
We can choose not to answer on Nextdoor.
If we're asked to review a restaurant, we can choose not to review it there.
If we're asked about our experience with a contractor, we can choose not to contribute that information to the platform.
Our participation is voluntary. So is our decision to pause it.
Neighbors should, of course, keep sharing information when safety, emergencies, missing persons, lost pets, severe weather, or another urgent community need makes it important. This petition is about the commercial value of routine business recommendations and feedback—not withholding information that could protect someone.
This Could Actually Make Nextdoor Stronger
This isn't necessarily an anti-Nextdoor proposal.
It could become an opportunity.
Imagine Nextdoor becoming one of the first major neighborhood platforms to say:
“The people creating our knowledge should participate in its success.”
Imagine an opt-in Neighbor Research Panel where people are compensated for detailed insights.
Imagine businesses paying for legitimate access to consumer research while participating neighbors receive a portion of that value.
Imagine AI becoming a tool that doesn't simply extract more value from years of human contributions, but creates a new economic relationship between the platform and the people who helped build its knowledge base.
That could be innovative.
That could differentiate Nextdoor.
And that could give neighbors another reason to contribute.
Our Information Has Value
Nextdoor built the platform.
Neighbors built the conversations.
Nextdoor created the distribution.
Neighbors created the recommendations.
Nextdoor developed the technology.
Neighbors contributed the experiences.
Those things can coexist.
This isn't about claiming ownership of Nextdoor's technology or asserting legal ownership over information governed by Nextdoor's existing terms.
It's about something much simpler:
Recognizing value.
Our information has value.
Our experiences have value.
Our recommendations have value.
Our time has value.
If that value is increasingly going to be monetized, particularly through advertising, business products, research, or AI, we believe the people helping create it deserve a meaningful place in the economic conversation.
Add Your Name
I pledge to pause providing new business reviews, recommendations, ratings, and other routine business-related feedback on Nextdoor until Nextdoor implements a meaningful Neighbor Value-Sharing Agreement that recognizes and shares the economic value created by neighbor contributions.
We created the knowledge. We should participate in its value.
Petition Updates
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Petition created on September 16, 2026