The first steps were good. #Socialhub emerged as a genuinely grassroots space, shaped to maintain the integrity of the #activertypub native reboot. It grew directly out of the #activertypub affinity group itself – rooted in lived practice rather than imposed structure.
So what motivated this native path? The current #openweb reboot wasn’t exactly planned – it was, in many ways, serendipitous. During the #WC3 process, the usual mainstream players were largely absent. That gap created space for an alternative cohort to step in and shape things in a more “native” way. This is rare. Normally, these processes are dominated by institutional and corporate interests, but for a moment, we had something different – and it worked.
From that strong beginning, #Socialhub grew into a real, functioning community. Its high point was during the Fediverse outreach to the EU, when there was a sense of shared purpose and direction. The social and technical sides were in balance, and the space felt alive, open, and productive. But over time, things shifted.
The rapid growth of the Fediverse brought in many people without any grounding in “native” #openweb culture. The influx – particularly from Twitter – changed the tone and priorities. This wasn’t entirely negative; growth always brings energy and diversity. But it also brought confusion, and a drift away from the original focus.
At the same time, there was a strong, increasingly dogmatic shift toward the technical side of #activertypub, at the expense of the social layer that made it meaningful. The balance tipped. The core crew thinned out, and newer, more tech-focused contributors filled the space. This mirrored the rebooting of the #WC3 process, and the two together created a difficult, often unspoken tension over direction and responsibility. Governance also became an issue. The line:
“To use the forum, you must agree to these terms with Petites Singularités, the company that runs the forum.”
Made visible something that had been quietly present for a while: this was not, in practice, a community-owned space. It had an owner, with an agenda. What had been presented as a shared, grassroots commons was, structurally, something else?
This marks a deeper shift – from serendipitous emergence to more deliberate control.
A short update: how we are failing
We didn’t fail because of bad intent. We fail because we didn’t hold onto the balance that made the space work.
- We allowed the social layer to be sidelined by the technical.
- We didn’t build clear, native governance while we still had the chance.
- We mistook growth for success, without mediating the cultural shift it brought.
- We let ownership and control consolidate quietly, instead of addressing it openly.
- And when tensions emerged, we defaulted to avoidance and #BLOCKING, rather than doing the messy work of resolution.
In short, we lost the thread of the #openweb path by not actively maintaining it.
Where that leaves us now? We are now in a more complex, more conflicted space. The community is bigger, but less coherent. The vision is more diluted, but still present, if we choose to pick it up again.
The solution isn’t simple. It likely involves some form of real, lived democracy, and a return to explicitly valuing the social processes alongside the technical ones. And maybe the only solid ground we still have is this: Grassroots is always messy, that mess isn’t a flaw – it’s how you know it’s real. The challenge is not to remove the mess, but to hold it together well enough that it can still grow.
