I think you are on the right track here.
Energy, energy efficiency, Distribution in a system.
The more centralised, the more uneven the distribution. Decentralised localism might be solution.
My relationship with Adobe went from love to hate when they bought up Macromedia and stopped developing FreeHand in 2003. I'm still using it and won't ever pay for any of their other products. Venezuelans will just have to give up cloud and Adobe can't do much about anything else.
You can't ban language because some use it to lie. The censorship idea has eerie cumulative logic built in. Today we ban a site, tomorrow a race. I'd also like to point out that in the context of declining economies the structures that have ensured democratic processes are inevitably declining with it.
Everyone gets a seat because the whole population is around million and the capital 400K. It's less complex to manage than, say, London. Less dense.
The whole idea was a mayor's election campaign. Rest of the parties were all against it.
Referendum: ask any population if they'd prefer free transport. There: 75.5%.
The money comes from somewhere. Although Estonia had average less national debt, their infrastructure (health service, education etc) is post2008 screwed like everywhere else.
Forget about the Ghost Ship tragedy. I'm offering more than ideas - what I've done successfully since '92 - developing products / services etc. for my clients. Point being here to avoid the pitfalls of cashflow issues beforehand and working yourself to death and not enjoying what you've started. And yes, once you have these problems it may be hard to convince anyone else to put their name behind it. Operationally there's something to be said stakeholders having "skin in the game". I like that Acequias idea.
I love this kind of spaces.
This is how I would advise to do it.
Art/literature - create high quality, high ROI product offering first. Hand bound collectables for example. Low cost digital counterparts. Find niche online first. Crowdfund, test.
Have the publishing first. That's raising capital. Profit/Non-Profit no real difference if you have income. Just don't rely on grants and voluntary resources (economic volatility will hit these first). Physical space: make it enchanting (design/brand/service/experience). So that people would want to pop in regardless of products. High ROI food: coffee, tea, pastry, nibbles, smoothies and such. Food=energy. Sell local energy (economic volatility will hit this last). Innovate. Constantly change the furniture, accessories - sell them. Both online and at the physical space. Think of it as a curated space. Assess risks particular to the location/niche. Have contingency. Have another contingency for risks that are unknown.
Anyone planning to open something like that - happy to give some more specific free advise (tangible products/interior- service design/branding/marketing/economics).