The challenge is in scaling alternative grassroots projects like #OMN while retaining their radical, transformative potential. As these projects sprout, they hit two major barriers:

  • Soft Social Power: Scaling requires broader community buy-in and social legitimacy, which is undermined by entrenched hierarchies and mainstream resistance.
  • Hard Power: When these projects start to resemble significant social challenges, they attract the attention of institutional forces, which respond with suppression or co-optation.

Paths we need to mediate these challenges:

  1. Bake the deeply Into federated governance. this is what the #OGB is for, to use federated, horizontal governance paths where decision-making power is distributed across nodes and communities. This creates resilience by decentralizing control and embedding trust at every layer.
    Hardcode the in to the open process as non-negotiable. Build these principles into the DNA of tools and communities to guard against corruption and co-optation.
  2. Focus on interoperability by building tools that connect and empower diverse movements rather than siloed, individual projects. #ActivityPub is a good example of a protocol fostering universalism in the #Fediverse. Prioritize community-first design, that tools are easy to use and serve collective needs, avoiding over-engineering and catering solely to tech-savvy users.
  3. Prepare for reaction and pushback by grow power strategically, use trust networks, federated alliances, and grassroots engagement this makes reactionary pushback harder to target and dismantle what you are building. Anticipate Resistance, recognize that crises will be used as opportunities for suppression. Strengthen your community’s capacity for crisis response through decentralized decision-making and resource-sharing networks. Collective defence, build alliances across movements to protect against external threats, whether they come from governments, corporations, or other institutions of hard power.
  4. Balance visionaries and builders by fostering inclusive engagement. Welcome both those who help build projects from scratch and those who engage with initiatives once they have momentum. Use simple, accessible entry points to bring more people into the projects. Avoid perfection paralysis, accept that projects evolve through experimentation and iteration. Focus on building functional systems that can adapt, rather than waiting for perfection.
  5. Shovelling the “crisis compost” to channel the mess. Use the growing crises as opportunities to mobilize and educate, while staying anchored to the . Shared narratives matter. Frame crises in terms of collective action and solidarity, countering divisive narratives that undermine project’s goals. Simplify and focus. Complex problems demand clear and grounded solutions, focus on basic, actionable steps as well as sprawling ambitions.

Moving forward, the path is undeniably messy, but the focus should be on growing horizontal power networks without compromising values. By committing to federated, principles and building resilience against internal and external challenges, projects like the #OMN thrive and scale without succumbing to the pressures that dismantle and dilute radical movements. This requires long-term commitment, patience, and a willingness to confront the realities of #powerpolitics while staying true to the foundational ethos of grassroots empowerment.