Tag: nothingnew

VisionOnTV: A Lost Future of Grassroots Video

Nearly 20 years ago, we built something radical. #VisionOnTV wasn’t just another platform, it was a #4opens movement. A bold attempt to break free from corporate-controlled media and give people the tools to create and share activist-driven, alternative television. We weren’t waiting for permission; we were building the future we wanted to see.

Before #YouTube became the advertising surveillance monolith it is today, we had a different vision. One where video wasn’t just disposable clickbait, but a tool for social change. The project was to curated hard-hitting documentaries, radical comedy, underground music, and voices that #mainstreaming #TV wouldn’t touch. Unlike the corporate “content farms”, our focus was on nurturing quality grassroots storytelling, ensuring activist media was just as compelling as anything on TV.

Technically, we were ahead of the curve. Using #Bittorrent for distribution, #Miro for viewing, and Creative Commons licensing, VisionOnTV se out to build a decentralized media network, a vision that today’s #PeerTube is still catching up to. We worked for a world where people weren’t just passive consumers, but active participants in the media they watched.

Of course, the internet went in a different direction. The rise of #dotcons pulled people into walled gardens where visibility was dictated by algorithms, engagement was hijacked by ads, and “independent creators” had to play the platform game or disappear. VisionOnTV stood against that tide, but history didn’t side with us.

Yet, the need for a project like VisionOnTV has never gone away. The corporate grip on media is suffocating, activist voices are still being marginalized, and the fight for an open, people-powered internet continues. Maybe it’s time to dig through the compost of the past and see what new seeds we can plant.

What do you remember about VisionOnTV? And what lessons should we carry forward into today’s decentralized media struggles?

#IndymediaBack #OMN #4opens #NothingNew

These aren’t pointless projects

#mainstreaming #liberalism has lost its way. For the past 20 years, many self-described liberals have spewed out bilge water disguised as “common sense.” But when pressure mounts, they reveal themselves as dogmatic and intolerant, almost as if they aren’t truly liberal at all.

How did we end up in this mess? The #deathcult, #stupidindividualism, and the rise of #dotcons shaped the dominant version of “common sense,” warping it away from collective care and into something narrow and self-destructive. It’s worth reflecting on this if we want to reclaim a liberal liberalism, rooted in genuine openness and social good.

In practice, we can compost this mess by focusing on #nothingnew paths. Two longstanding cultural projects already embody this, working in non-federated ways for over a century. Now, we can add technical federation to the mix, building on 5+ years of #ActivityPub rollout.

This gives us two powerful, #openweb-native paths forward:

  • Grassroots #DIY culture — Local, self-organized, and messy, but thriving outside corporate control.
  • Technical federation — Interconnected systems designed to distribute power and ownership.

Both of these paths lead somewhere meaningful:

These aren’t pointless projects, they’re a chance to break free from the suffocating grip of the #deathcult and build something resilient, human, and actually free.

Shall we pick up the shovels and start composting? 🌱

What matters and what is dangerous

The influx of #mainstreaming brings many different, often non-native, focuses into our spaces. Most of these will be better handled as external resources. Let’s keep the core simple: #KISS and #4opens. Money is a dangerous subject for #openweb projects. It’s the root of corruption and co-option, so it’s best to keep financial aspects as external applications and simply link to them. Words are wind, look at the ground. We live in a closed world, and we should not add to this mess.

  • There is no security in CLOSED systems — security comes from OPEN and social processes.
  • There is no security in individualism — true security lies in community.
  • There is no security in “trustless” models — real security emerges from social trust.

Over the last 10 years, we’ve been fed meany lies. This is especially clear in tech. Look at #opensource: can you find any lasting value in CLOSED within that? Over the last 20 years, we’ve seen an ongoing battle between OPEN and CLOSED, but the last decade has been dominated by the #dotcons and their shadow puppet, the #encryptionists. Both are CLOSED, both wear the cloth of OPEN, and both recite the right words. But words are wind — look at the ground. #4opens is the reality check.

I’ll be truly optimistic when closed paths of #encryptionist apps cross standards with the #open of #activertypub apps, bridging the human nature and “feeling” that fuels this gap. But right now, there’s a strong, unspoken push not to address these issues.

Nearly everything I do today revolves around #4opens, addressing the unspoken issues head-on. I’ve been doing this full-time for more than 30 years, and I’ve watched hundreds of alt-tech projects wither on the vine, with only a handful of flowering. Reflecting on this, I’ve developed a #KISS universally reliable way of judging which projects might flourish and which will collapse: the #4opens framework. Others might call it open-source development or radical transparency, but it’s all the same core path #nothingnew

To move this forward, we need to address the core problems:

  • The #geekproblem — a teenage mix of arrogance and ignorance that spreads like wildfire.
  • The #dotcons — a relentless push of greed over human need.

These are fundamental issues, and it’s good, necessary, to have strong opinions on them. Because not having an opinion? That’s a path straight back to the #deathcult. We don’t need more of that. What we need is compost, patience, and the courage to keep pushing for openness and social solidarity, no matter how messy it gets.

Let’s grow something real.

There’s an unspoken #geekproblem lurking at the heart of the #openweb, and it’s past time we bring it into the light. If we frame #p2p as #human2human, scaling becomes a virtue, an organic process of communities growing, evolving, and finding balance through social trust. But if we view #p2p as #data2data, scaling becomes a purely technical challenge, one that strips the human element away.

The first path embraces the messy beauty of human connections. Scaling isn’t a failure, it’s a reminder that growth needs care, cooperation, and thoughtful design. The second path, the data-centric approach, treats humans as nodes, reducing complex social interactions to packets of information to optimize and control.

Here’s the issue: the latter view is the one pushed by the #dotcons. The systems we’ve grown up with, the platforms we’ve relied on, all reinforce this anti-human perspective. And whether we like it or not, we’ve internalized some of this thinking, even within our #openweb projects. That’s the uncomfortable truth.

The question is: do we actually want to solve this? Because the solution isn’t technical, it’s social. It means rejecting the idea that tech should replace or dominate human processes. It means making space for friction, for inefficiency, for the unpredictability of people working together.

Talk to a geek today. Start the conversation. Ask how they see #p2p — as people connecting, or as machines exchanging data? Their answer might tell you a lot about where their compass is pointing, and whether we can navigate back toward a web that is human.

Let’s compost the #geekproblem, nourish the soil, and grow something better.

Why?

People conform to the #deathcult of neoliberalism, capitalism, and its destructive paths because they are conditioned to. The control is media, education, social pressure, economic dependence, shaped to enforce compliance. Even when people recognize the system is dark and broken, they still bow down. Why?

Fear & survival, meany people are trapped in precarious economic conditions. They fear losing their jobs, homes, and social standing if they resist. When survival is at stake, rebellion feels to dangerous to risk the little they have.

Comfort & convenience, worshipping the #deathcult provides short-term rewards: consumerism, entertainment and distraction. Even those who hate it find comfort in its predictability. Change is hard, uncertainty is scary.

Psychological conditioning, our #mainstreaming propaganda is everywhere, it has convinced people there is no alternative (#TINA). They’ve been trained to see resistance as futile, rebellion as chaos, and compliance as “normal.”

Social pressure & herd mentality, simply few people want to be outsiders. They follow the crowd, even when the crowd is heading off a cliff. Conforming is easier than facing any rejection and isolation.

Exhaustion & despair, knowing the current path is going to harm them and kill their children, makes them feel powerless. The #deathcult grinds people down, keeps them struggling just to survive, leaving little energy or focus for resistance.

Lack of vision, the #mainstreaming invests a lot in destroying alternatives before they can take root. Without these clear, viable paths, people fall back into the familiar, no matter how broken it is.

But why STILL? Five years ago, yes, this wasn’t as obvious to everyone. Now, the mask has fallen, look around you can see people on their knees, the #deathcult is marching us straight into #climatecollapse, endless wars, and digital enslavement. Yet people still conform. Why? Because fear works. Because the system adapts. Because the majority would rather scrabble for comfortable servitude than risk the unknown.

But cracks are forming. The illusion is fading. The question is, will we build something better before it all collapses? #4opens #nothingnew #deathcult #geekproblem #stupidindividualism #OMN

PS. The current hard shift to the right is simply worshipping a more historical #deathcult, that of #fascism with its dark, very dark history, so the question still stands, WHY?

We Made This Mess—Time to Clean It Up

For the last 20 years, most of our crew have played a part in shaping the digital world we see today. What began as a space of radical possibility has been enclosed, exploited, and transformed into a corporate-controlled dystopia of #dotcons. We lived inside this algorithmic trap, and in many ways, we still do—fighting, trolling, and feeding the very system that keeps us addicted.

Trapped inside the algorithm, these platforms don’t exist to foster community or critical thought; they thrive on division. They keep us locked into emotional reaction loops, rewarding outrage, amplifying conflict, and turning us into performance artists in an endless identity war.

Take #Failbook and the rise of victim culture. This isn’t an accident, it’s by design. The algorithm doesn’t care about truth or justice; it cares about engagement, and what gets the most clicks? Anger. Fear. Outrage. The result is a world where people react instead of act, trapped in cycles of performative identity rather than building real alternatives.

We don’t need more “ethical” #dotcons. Repackaging the same centralized control under a new brand of “ethical” capitalism is not the solution. We don’t need another walled garden with a friendlier PR campaign. We need an independent, federated media ecosystem, one that #KISS values community, autonomy, and the public good over profit.

This is why the #OMN (Open Media Network) path exists. It’s not another platform designed to extract data and profit, it’s a network of trust-based spaces, where people interact as humans, not as data points. The #Fediverse and #ActivityPub offer the foundation for this, but we need to push harder. Right now, these alternatives still carry too much of the #mainstreaming liberal baggage that makes them fragile to capitalist capture.

We need to build spaces that resist corporate logic from the root, not just replicate centralized control under new branding. To avoid repeating this mess making, we need to remember how the capitalists capture of the #openweb. To understand how we got here, we have to look at capitalism through the lens of the #dotcons. The enclosure of the #openweb was not inevitable, it was a deliberate shift from public good to private profit.

How capitalism broke the web, commercialization & enclosure. The web was originally built as an open, decentralized space for information sharing. Capitalism transformed it into a marketplace, where value is extracted rather than created. Exploitation of users, platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon don’t sell products, they sell you. Your data, your attention, your behaviour, all harvested, manipulated, and monetized.

This leads to monopolization & centralization, the most ruthless companies buy out competitors, stifle innovation, and consolidate power. What started as an open system is now controlled by a handful of corporations. Surveillance capitalism, the term, popularized by Shoshana Zuboff, describes the commodification of personal data for profit. What was once a tool for communication is now a weapon of manipulation.

Erasing the public sphere. Corporate algorithms don’t care about truth, knowledge, or democracy. They prioritize profit-driven content, promoting misinformation, sensationalism, and division while destroying any sense of a shared public space. This leaves us in a world of short-term gains for the nasty few over long-term vision for the meany, this stagnates progress and accelerates environmental and social collapse.

We made this mess—Now let’s fix it. The logic of the #dotcons. We can’t keep being prats about this. We’ve spent 20 years making this mess, now it’s past time to clean it up. Decentralization alone isn’t enough. We need alternative media spaces that reject control from the start. That’s what the #OMN is about. If we’re serious about breaking free, we need to use the #4opens as a shovel to compost the #techshit we’ve been drowning in.

Time to stop only talking—Let’s build. We don’t need another debate. We don’t need another corporate-controlled “alternative.” We do need to step outside the algorithm and start building trust-based networks that work for people, not profit. We do need to reclaim the #openweb before it’s too late. So—what are we waiting for? Let’s get to work.

#4opens #nothingnew #deathcult #geekproblem #OMN #openweb

Building a #4opens Alternative to the #Deathcult

We live in a system that worships consumption. It’s not just about meeting needs, it’s about feeding an economy that only grows when people buy more, waste more, and replace instead of repair. This is one of the core tenants of the #deathcult, the #neoliberal ideology that tells us there is no alternative to endless growth, even as it drags us toward #climatechaos.

What if we build something different, something that values community over consumption, reuse over replacement, and DIY culture over passive consumerism? This is where the #4opens come in, transparency, collaboration, and shared knowledge as the foundation for real alternatives to the corporate churn machine. It’s a tool to mediate overconsumption, it isn’t just about the stuff, it’s about the system. The #dotcons (big tech platforms, global brands, centralized supply chains) exist to keep us dependent, feeding a cycle of control, waste, planned obsolescence, artificial scarcity, and throwaway culture.

We see this everywhere, in #techchurn, New phones, new software, endless updates that make old devices “obsolete” before they break. Fast fashion, clothing designed to fall apart, pushing people into a cycle of cheap, unethical labour and landfill waste. Algorithmic media distraction, a constant flood of junk entertainment designed to keep us too distracted to act, too demoralised to challenge the system. This is by design. The corporate web, the #dotcons, will absorb everything if we don’t (re)create our own independent alternatives.

The composting alternative is about creating a regenerative culture, isn’t only boycotting big brands or consuming “better.” It’s about nurturing and mediating alternatives—turning the waste of the old system into compost for something new. By embracing the #DIY ethic – Fix things, repurpose them, and share knowledge instead of feeding the churn. Build the #openweb – Move away from corporate-controlled spaces to decentralized, transparent platforms that serve communities, not ad networks. Reject #mainstreaming trends – Stop chasing the latest thing just because the algorithm tells you to. Foster trust-based networks – Support local, independent, and open-source projects that work for people, not profit.

The #OMN as a tool for mediation, a practical example of challenging the corporate wasteland of mainstream media and tech. Instead of relying on big platforms, it creates a decentralized, grassroots-driven network where people control their own media, bypassing the need for #dotcons and centralized control.

In the same way, we need to mediate overconsumption—not just by refusing to buy, but by building something better in its place. This isn’t about guilt or purity. It’s about real alternatives. If we don’t start creating them, we will be left with nothing but the corporate churn, stripping away our agency and leaving us with a hollow, temporary world. The current mess is compost. We either let it rot uselessly or turn it into the soil for something new. The choice is ours.

#nothingnew #4opens #techchurn #deathcult

Decoding the Hashtags: A Roadmap for Social Change

The world we live in is shaped by 40 years of entrenched #neoliberalism and #postmodernism, both of which have systematically dismantled radical change and challenge. To reclaim our future, we must reject the illusions of “common sense” fed to us by the #deathcult and reboot from a place of clarity. This is where the following #hashtags come into play, acting as conceptual tools for navigating, understanding, and breaking free from the mess we’re in.

#nothingnew – A Radical Return to Modernism

The #nothingnew hashtag is a simple and effective (#KISS) framework for understanding where we went wrong and how to start moving forward again. It rejects the dominant neoliberal and postmodern ideologies that have smothered radical politics for four decades. Instead, it seeks to reboot social change by returning to the original modernist path—one rooted in progress, structure, and tangible social transformation.

Once we re-establish this foundation, we can move beyond it to build #somethingnew. But without a proper starting point, all attempts at change remain trapped in the same neoliberal fog that has defined the status quo for so long. The modernist approach of clarity, direct action, and meaningful social structures must replace the disorienting, fragmented logic of postmodern cynicism that has paralysed social movements and left the field open for neoliberal dominance.

#geekproblem – Technology, Control, and the Worship of Power

The #geekproblem is a complex challenge, one that sits at the heart of many of our current struggles. While technology could be a liberating force, it has instead become a tool for control, both in the hands of capitalist class and within geek culture itself. At its core, the problem is that geeks, historically, have been builders and problem solvers. But many have a deeply ingrained need for CONTROL, which is fundamentally out of balance with the collaborative ethos of modernism. Over the last 40 years, as technology has concentrated power, geek culture has been co-opted by the #deathcult, prioritising power, profit, and authoritarianism over openness and freedom.

To fix this, we need to take the “problem” out of “geek.” That means confronting the fetishisation of control, hierarchy, and technocratic elitism that pervades much of tech culture. This is not a #KISS problem, it requires real and deep reflection, social engagement, and the reclamation of technology as a force for liberation.

#deathcult – The Worship of Neoliberalism

The #deathcult is a blunt and direct metaphor for neoliberalism, the ideology of destruction that has dominated the world for the last 40 years. This is a #KISS idea because it’s simple, Neoliberalism isn’t about building, it’s about extraction, enclosure, and control. It disguises itself as common sense, but in reality, it is an economic death spiral, for the planet, for workers, for public services, and for communities. Every time you hear markets presented as the solution to our problems, you are hearing the voice of the #deathcult.

For an example of this, just look at #UN COP process, where the world’s response to climate catastrophe was to double down on markets and profit-driven “solutions.” We are in a truly nasty mess because we have spent decades blindly worshipping a system designed to destroy us.

Breaking free from the mess, understanding these #hashtags is a step towards clarity, a rejection of the confusion and stagnation that has kept us locked into neoliberal dogma.

#nothingnew gets us back on the right path.
#geekproblem helps us understand why technology has failed to free us.
#deathcult reminds us who the real enemy is.

Using these frameworks, we can begin to rebuild a movement that is rooted in reality, not neoliberal delusions. The question is, are we ready to do this work?

Cutting through 99% of the #techshit

The #openweb is a much better framing than #fediverse when trying to break out of the tribal bubbles. It speaks to something broader and historical, whereas #fediverse is just one (flawed) expression of those ideas.

Why #openweb matters, it’s not new, which is actually a strength, this is the original internet vision before it got hijacked by #dotcons. It avoids the self-referential nature of the #fediverse, which often turns into a closed loop of devs talking to devs. It’s a term that can bridge communities rather than reinforcing in-group/out-group dynamics.

The limits of mirroring #dotcons, the first stage of the #fediverse, was largely about copying corporate social media platforms but without the profit motive. That was useful, but it’s hit a ceiling. Why? Lack of real community support – Devs build stuff, but actual social infrastructure is missing. Scaling the wrong way – Just copying individualist, engagement-driven models doesn’t actually create an open, healthy network. Reinforcing the #geekproblem – Developers remain in control, not communities, which leads to predictable NGO-style behaviour creeping in.

Shifting the balance in tech, we can’t just keep replicating the #mainstreaming mess in different codebases. The tech itself needs to reflect the values of the #openweb, decentralised in governance, not just code, community-led, not dev-controlled, process transparency, not just ‘open-source’ performatively.

Dealing with the #geekproblem, devs are used to solving problems in isolation, but society isn’t a coding challenge. They often bring #NGO behaviour into the #fediverse, expecting deference to their authority—and then act surprised when there’s kickback.

Being #openweb native, if you’re coming from the NGO world, you’ll have a much better time if you actually engage with the native culture of the #openweb rather than trying to impose external hierarchies. Otherwise, you’ll just recreate the same socially and self-destructive patterns that have wrecked everything else. So yeah, to boost this thinking, we need to start using #openweb more and move beyond the #fediverse branding trap.

The #4opens and #nothingnew both cut through 99% of the crap so the few people who are going to do something can do something that would be useful rather than unless. From useful you get a few more people, rinse and repeat, and you get social change and challenge, even if this is repressed or implodes, it will be more fun, and interesting than the current mess making.

The difference between struggle and #fashernista ethics. The latter is comfortable. The former matters.

Power in tech isn’t neutral, and our issue over the last 20 years is that we have allowed the #dotcons to hoarded and weaponised it. The answer to our failer isn’t to retreat or seek more “ethical” enclosures, it’s to reclaim our power through radical, commons-based networks like #indymediaback and the #OMN.

This argument is #nothingnew, we don’t need endless reinvention, we need continuity. The #openweb isn’t about mimicking #dotcons; it’s about breaking their privatisation model and returning power to collective hands. Hashtags, metadata, and federated networks help on this path, but the real strength is social, not just technical.

Examples of this: #Indymediaback isn’t just a project, it’s a continuation of a proven model that worked before the #dotcons stole the narrative. It was a social technological project embedded in radical movements, used real-world trust systems, and functioned outside of state/corporate control. Rebuilding it isn’t nostalgia; it’s a practical step toward rebalancing power.

We need ongoing arguments about power, opting out or running to “better” #dotcons just dodges the issue. Power is always there. The question is who holds it, and for what purpose? Right now, the #dotcons wield it for social control, profit, and policing. The #openweb flips that, if we build it as a “native” path.

The fight isn’t about making people “feel good” about tech choices, it’s about removing power from enclosures and putting it back into the commons. That’s the difference between real struggle and #fashernista ethics. The latter is comfortable. The former matters.

Paranoia is one of the biggest blockers in alt-tech and radical spaces. It breeds mistrust, isolation, and internal sabotage, making collective action impossible. While some caution is necessary, too much just feeds into stasis and control, mirroring the systems activists are trying to break away from.

The #4opens is a direct antidote to this. Transparency counters paranoia, when decisions, processes, and networks are open, there’s less space for suspicion to fester. Trust isn’t built by secrecy but by consistent, open, and accountable action.

The irony is that a lot of these paranoid actors think they’re resisting control, but by shutting everything down, they’re just self-sabotaging. The solution isn’t more walls—it’s more flows. The #4opens provides the framework to move past the paranoia blockade and rebuild trust in practice, not just theory.

The victimhood narrative is often a trap, weaponised by the right and co-opted by the #fashernista left to shut down alternatives. It can be used as a tool of control, not liberation. Composting the mess, in part, by refuse to play their game, victimhood, is in part real and in part is used to create moral authority without real action. If we engage on those terms, we just get dragged into performative battles.

Expose the power dynamics, by asking who benefits from this? In the negative sense, it’s often gatekeepers who want to control the narrative. NGOs do it for funding, #dotcons for engagement, and #mainstreaming activists for status. A path out of this is reclaiming direct action, which sadly meany in the left abandoned, and the right picked up. We need to take it back, not through reactionary purity politics, but by actually doing the work outside their controlled spaces. A healing path is shifting from identity to process, the current model is all about who is speaking, not what is being built. That’s a dead end. We need #4opens process-driven organising, not personality cults or gatekept “safe spaces.” Make failure visible, one of the biggest weapons against alt movements is pointing out their failures, while #mainstreaming projects hide their rot. If we embrace messy openness, we take that power away.

Breaking the cycle:

  • The right weaponises grievance → to mobilise.
  • The liberal left weaponises grievance → to control and suppress real challenge.
  • The alt-left needs to weaponise transparency → to break gatekeeping and rebuild trust.

So the question is: how do we make “openness” an effective tool in this? The #4opens is a step.

Crossing the River: Tech & Politics

Most tech and political projects are pointless. They churn in circles, endlessly repeating the same mistakes. The river that needs crossing—where tech meets politics—is blocked on both sides. On the political side: arrogance and ignorance. On the geek side: naivety and over-complexity.

A solution? #NothingNew. Most of the problems we face have already been solved, or at least mediated. Instead of chasing the latest shiny, we should be composting the old and using what already works. The #4opens is a way of stepping away from the current tech mess, cutting through the churn, and building something that lasts.

Politics, of course, is messier. As always, “people are afraid of what they do not understand.” But that fear has been weaponised. Thatcher and Reagan’s children, raised on market dogma, are hopeless at cooperation. They can’t think beyond #stupidindividualism, and that’s a serious problem when trying to build #openweb projects.

If we want real change, we need to stop trying to own everything and start learning how to work together. Otherwise, we’ll keep drowning in the same river.

Rethinking Technology

A lot of the post on this site are based on this thinking. Technology is how a society interacts with physical reality. It’s how we feed, clothe, shelter, and heal ourselves. It’s the material stuff that makes life possible, from cooking fires to solar panels, from flint knives to AI algorithms. The idea that only ‘hi-tech’ counts as technology is an absurdity born from a century and a half of industrial brainwashing.

We’ve been so numbed by endless ‘progress’ that we assume only things as complex as computers and jet bombers qualify as technology. As if paper, ink, wheels, clocks, and aspirin pills weren’t tech—just things that exist, like trees and rivers. As if steel saucepans with copper bottoms and fleece vests spun from recycled glass grew on trees, ripe for the picking.

The false divide of ‘hi-tech’ and ‘low-tech’ is a con. Try lighting a fire without matches—realise that even so-called primitive tech takes skill and knowledge. Try making a fishhook, a shoe, or a simple tool—realise how much has been lost in the rush towards hyper-specialised consumerism.

Tech isn’t just what we consume—it’s what we can learn to do. That’s the point. And all science is, at its core, technological, whether or not we understand this.

A lot of what the #geekproblem thinks as social is just as much technology, as the hard blinded modernism they tend to worship, cults are as much a problem as a “solution”. Our social structures that we use to shape the world our geeks tend to “blindly” worship is technology #KISS

Post inspired by https://www.ursulakleguin.com/a-rant-about-technology

The idea that technology is not politics (which is a technology) is an echo of the myth that is at the very heart of our predicament.

#Technology #NothingNew #TechShit #OpenWeb #4Opens #DeathCult #DIY #CompostTheFuture

The web wasn’t built by solo tech geniuses

The web wasn’t built by solo tech geniuses, finance firms, or flashy luminaries making illusionary promises. It was grown by the collective time, energy, and creativity of millions of grassroots people and communities working together to create something greater than themselves. The internet as we know it emerged not from the top-down visions of elites, but from decentralised, collaborative efforts. This same collective energy will be what propels us into the next era of the #openweb, a web that remains true to its native principles of accessibility, freedom, and inclusivity.

For the last 20 years, however, we’ve been stuck in the corporate-controlled ecosystem of the #dotcons. Platforms like Meta, Google, and Amazon have dominated the landscape, turning the internet into a commodity to be bought, sold, and controlled. Their vision has led to the rise of the #closedweb, where profit and surveillance trump openness and collaboration. This #mainstreaming path is deeply concerning because it fundamentally contradicts what the web was meant to be, a space for sharing, learning, and connecting without the old gatekeepers.

There is a movement to reverse this trend, the #Fediverse, but like meany reboots it’s floundering as it grows through the inrushing of “common sense”. What we need is native #KISS foundations for a thriving #openweb, A path to this is to embrace the #4opens as guiding principles:

  • Open Data: Ensuring that information can be freely shared and reused.
  • Open Source: Building tools and platforms that anyone can access, modify, and improve.
  • Open Standards: Creating interoperable systems that work across platforms and communities.
  • Open Process: Making decisions transparently and inclusively to foster trust and collaboration.

This is a simple retelling of the #FOSS process with the addition of #openprocess as is used in the best projects, this is a part of the #nothingnew path we are on.

It’s not enough to critique the #dotcons, we need to actively build alternatives, the #Fediverse has already taken the first set on this path. The next step is focusing our energy on “native” projects like #OMN (Open Media Network), #IndyMediaBack, and #OGB (Open Governance Body), on this path we can create a decentralised, human-centred web that prioritises communities over corporations. These projects are not about recreating the same flawed systems in a slightly different guise; they’re about fundamentally rethinking how we engage with technology, governance, and communication. This rethink is #nothingnew as it’s copying the working structure of grassroots activism.

The time is now to come together and make history by working on these alternatives. The #openweb is not just an ideal; it’s a necessity for a sustainable, democratic future. Let’s reject the illusions of the #closedweb and instead build a web that truly belongs to everyone.