Hamish Campbell an #openweb organic intellectual and technologist
Three years ago I was trying to explain something simple in language liberals might actually hear. They talk about “platform capitalism.” Fine. But I’ve been calling it the #dotcons for 20 years – because that’s what it is – a con. The last 30 years of tech hasn’t just drifted into this mess. It’s been … Continue reading The #dotcons, #mainstreaming, and Build to Walk Away
Today there are a lot of dishonest people – it’s become the default. Finding someone who is actually truthful is rare. So with this in mind, let’s stop being polite about this, what we’re living inside online right now isn’t “social media.” It’s a managed enclosure – a system designed to extract value, shape behaviour, … Continue reading Growing the #openweb – Notes for Composting the #dotcons (and growing an #OMN)
One of the quiet assumptions built into almost every #dotcons platform is that the user secretly wants to become a #techbro. Not literally, of course, but culturally. You are expected to optimise yourself by building your “personal brand” to track your metrics. Engage with algorithmic growth loops by understand platforms, feeds, APIs, monetisation tools, creator … Continue reading The #dotcons assume you want to be a techbro
Recently I’ve been doing media interviews – one mainstream piece for a #boatingeurope article coming out in traditional media, and another for the Cherwell student paper in Oxford focused more on biography. Both journalists said the same thing: “It was surprisingly hard to find information about you online.” Around the same time, a boater friend … Continue reading Disappearing from Search: A personal story about visibility, #dotcons, and the shrinking #openweb
Let’s be honest, we already lost metadata privacy. The #dotcons, the surveillance state, and the data brokers see everything. This isn’t a warning about what might happen, it’s the reality we live in today’s mess. In normal peoples lives every click, every message, every connection is tracked, logged, and monetised. There is no going back … Continue reading Privacy in the age of #Dotcons
In the USA #techshit mess, #OpenAI is busy wrapping itself in the stars and stripes, pushing the fantasy of “democratic AI” while the democracy fig leaf is withering. This isn’t democracy – it’s branding. It’s the normal Silicon Valley laundering greed through the American imperialism. The #nastyfew, Sam Altman, Larry Ellison, Masayoshi Son, and the … Continue reading The #dotcons drained the VC swamp and now guzzle from the mainstream corporate socialism
Capitalism, especially in its late-stage #neoliberal form, has always had significant structural problems. In recent decades, these problems have been amplified and globalized through our lived society, I look here at the path of the digital platforms, what we call at the #OMN the #dotcons. The first thing to understand is these companies are not … Continue reading Criticisms of capitalism and its digital children, the #dotcons
Ten years ago, I posted photos of a police raid on a boat in Mile End Park to a local Facebook group. What followed was a storm of critique from fellow community members, particularly around privacy, ethics, and the nature of local news. That exchange came back through the memory algorithm on #failbook, it’s interesting … Continue reading What is journalism in a dotcons community space?
Anyone still building their career only in the #dotcons is either an idiot or a parasite. Because when you tie yourself to platforms owned by the #deathcult, you’re feeding the very machine that eats your freedom, your data, your culture. The #openweb is the commons. It’s messy, imperfect, but it’s ours. Stop polishing the cage. … Continue reading When we block thinking, it’s pratish #dotcons behaviour
This is a mess which has been clear to see for 20 years, but people still keep falling into the same traps instead of stepping off the cycle of conflict leading to control. Yes, we had something, we lost it, but as I talk about, we are still refusing to face why. Let’s use #Failbook … Continue reading People, community, the struggle between #openweb and #dotcons
In the early days, the internet was a wild, open landscape, a place of creativity, collaboration, and decentralization. But over time, the rise of corporate platforms (the #dotcons) turned it into something far more controlled, walled-off, and extractive. What if we could reclaim that original vision? What if we could build an open, federated, and … Continue reading Rewilding a people-first web, beyond the #dotcons
There is a tech ideology that masks corporate power, and this view of #mainstreaming Cyber libertarianism is a bizarre ideological mishmash, a combination of hippie flower power, economic neoliberalism, and a heavy dose of technological determinism. It’s the credo of Silicon Valley, so much so that for years it was known as the “Californian Ideology.” … Continue reading The #dotcons share an ideology