Talking to the Bureaucratic Co-op Crew – Governance, Culture, and the Fediverse

Let’s take a step back. In an old thread about online governance, I found it revealing – and a bit frustrating – that almost nobody actually engaged with what the thread was about: building a lightweight, federated, working governance layer.

The project in question is the OpenWeb Governance Body (#OGB):
https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody/

We were writing a funding proposal to take a simple, well-tested social workflow (which we already know doesn’t scale in its current form), and federate it, to scale through distribution, not centralization. Think of it like this, we already have a proof-of-concept that this can work. It’s called the #Fediverse. Yes, there will be a lot of “smoke”, confusion, distraction, bureaucratic inertia. But we’ve got practice cutting through it, and could use the funding to bring in more people who see clearly and act with purpose.

A cultural problem, not just a technical one. This isn’t about personal attacks, it’s about recognizing a systemic cultural issue. Many people (often, but not exclusively, middle-aged white men) simply can’t see that some projects have value despite being outside their frameworks or institutional comfort zones. It’s a kind of intellectual and emotional poverty endemic to the late capitalist #deathcult era.

“Distilled, grassroots, radical governance is a good fit for the fediverse.”

And that’s what we’re doing. This work comes from decades of experience, 30+ years of distilled practice from social change spaces:

Squats and protest camps

Climate camps and Reclaim the Streets

Indymedia, XR, and even Occupy

And Rainbow Gatherings — still running on consensus-based governance born from the Vietnam-era anti-war movement (not “hippy dippy” utopias, as some imagine)

What we’re doing is embedding this lived practice into the tools and frameworks of the #openweb, giving people digital tools that reflect real-world collective experience. These are bottom-up, permissionless, and rooted in doing and trust built through doing. This is not about technical fixes. It’s about giving people the space to get messy and find their own path to cooperation.

Why we don’t use #processgeek paths like “Sociocracy”? Some suggest alternatives like sociocracy. And sure, if that works for your group, go for it. But from our side, sociocracy is often the equivalent of a well-meaning hippy round the campfire saying “can’t we all just get along?” while someone pisses on the garden they planted and another person ignores the washing-up rota they just taped up. It’s a structure that presumes goodwill and compliance, and that’s not enough. We’re building for mess, for people who don’t agree, for trust that emerges through doing, not rules imposed from above.

Multi-stakeholder Co-ops? Yes, but not from your typical bureaucratic blueprint. What we’re proposing looks like a multi-stakeholder co-op at times, but it’s far more grounded in anarchist and community-based models. It’s not about creating legalistic enclosures or hierarchical enforcement, we deliberately ignore that logic.

About centralization, Yes, Mastodon’s >90% of instances are in five countries. Yes, some instances hold way more users than others. And yes, that’s an issue. But we address this differently, we recognize centralization as a problem and create space for alternatives by encouraging small, local, resilient hosting.

If you run an instance in the #Fediverse, you already understand, It’s your voice, there’s a positive feedback loop here, the more care you give to your space, the more your voice matters. No need for complicated representation schemes. This is the natural governance of federation. You don’t get a vote unless you actually show up, that’s fair, if you want influence, spin up an instance, participate in the culture, do the work.

Governance isn’t something you build from scratch. It’s something you distill from lived experience.

We don’t want complexity. We want clarity, action, and real tools that reflect how people already cooperate.

#KISS wins — every time.

The project matters more for what it refuses to do, than for what it builds.

The #OGB path is not #mainstreming, it’s a counter current, it is about building shared governance for the #openweb, grounded in the #4opens and real-world collective experience. Want to help? Step out of your institutional box, get your hands dirty, help make governance useful again.

Conversations on Compost, Bridges, and the Future

A few recent conversations remind me: we’ve already done the work of building alternatives. Twenty years of grassroots tech, radical process, and messy social organizing. The trouble is, that soil has been hollowed out, scattered, exhausted, and composted into the #dotcons

Our current mission isn’t to “start from scratch,” but to rebuild bridges, spread compost, and replenish the soil. That’s why I keep coming back to this moment, the bridging of the #openweb back into #mainstream via #ActivityPub. This is a rare window, let’s not waste it.

The #SocialWebFoundation (#SWF) and others organizing around this space need to think hard about where the bridges land. If we build only toward control, influence, and safety, we miss the point. The #Fediverse wasn’t meant to become a “cleaned-up Twitter clone.” That path leads us back to enclosure.

We need to keep the messy stuff alive, the radical roots, the collective compost piles, the experiments. Because if our worlds keep shrinking, if we make everything tidy and branded, we lose the alternatives that might save us in an age of #climatechaos and hard-right acceleration.

And yes, some of them do understand, the #nastyfew they ran the numbers, and concluded they don’t have to care. In their calculus, the collapse is survivable (for them). The rest of us? We’re disposable. We need different maths, rooted in care, commons, and continuity.

Personally, I’m tired, I no longer have the energy to push these projects alone. So the next step? Abstract the flows, share the compost, and hand the maps to the next generation. I’m still here to mentor. Still sailing, thinking of writing a book to document the 40+ years of practice that shaped this works

If you want to help build something that actually matters, not just another platform, but a commons, the tools are here. The ideas are ripe. The soil can be restored. Let’s keep building, linking, and #makinghistory.

The Open Media Network: More Than Just a Tech Project

At first glance, the #OMN (Open Media Network) might look like a technical project, a collection of code, standards, and protocols. But to think of it only this way is to miss the point entirely.

What we’re building is a social and technological fabric for the #openweb, woven together by shared values and practical needs. Yes, there’s tech, but the tools and standards we develop are not neutral. They lean, by design, toward openness, transparency, collaboration, and grassroots control, the principles of the #4opens.

These standards are not delivered from on high by lone developers or institutional committees. They emerge from the lived, everyday use of technology, from how communities interact, what they need, and how they grow together. They evolve from practice, leading to theory.

The code is nothing without people. The protocol withers without participation.

So, we’re not only building tech, we’re growing a community, and that community gives the technology life. It’s a symbiotic process: the social side shapes the tech, and the tech enables new social formations. One cannot thrive without the other. If you treat it only as a technical solution, it will fail, no matter how elegant the code. If you treat it only as a social project, it will stall, no matter how good the intentions. We have to hold both in balance. In that balance, real change becomes possible.

In this spirit, the #OMN is not just an infrastructure project. It’s a call to those who want to reboot the web from the grassroots up, reclaiming the digital commons from #dotcons and #deathcult systems. Let’s get to build it together, simple, federated, and open.

We all know the current state of independent and grassroots media: scattered, under-resourced, and mostly invisible to the wider public. While the content exists, the connection between producers, platforms, and audiences is too often broken. Meanwhile, corporate platforms like #Failbook, Google, and YouTube work for a few, they continue to dominate how people access and experience media and use this to push down any real radical change.

We need a reset, not by building shiny new silos or reinventing the wheel, but by connecting what already exists into a living network. This is where the Open Media Network (#OMN) comes in. The core idea is to link together the fragments of the #openweb. Rather than replace everything, OMN builds bridges between existing activist sites, blogs, podcasts, and alt media using open standards and simple, low-barrier tools.

The idea is simple: Producers publish content on their existing sites (blogs, podcasts, etc.). Aggregators bring it all together, curating, tagging, and redistributing content through RSS, ActivityPub and metadata flows.

What this means for people is easy discovery of relevant content on the topics they care about. A gateway back to the #openweb – away from algorithmic manipulation and ads. A better browsing experience than siloed social media.

What it means for media producers: Syndication, content appears on dozens or hundreds of relevant sites. More traffic, more engagement, and better visibility without having to chase algorithms. Simple tools to embed rivers of content from others, so you give back to the network while benefiting from it. In short, publish once, appear everywhere, no need to grind content for each individual silo.

Why this works, all content remains owned by the original publishers. The system simply connects and enhances what’s already there. It’s not a new platform, it’s the missing glue between platforms. Why this matters socially, we’ve been burned by both: The #geekproblem of over complication and privacy tunnel-vision and the NGO/foundation/brand-washing of horizontal, activist culture

OMN avoids both by hardcoding openness and cooperation into the foundations, using the #4opens as a social and technical guide. This isn’t a system that can be easily captured or siloed. It’s designed to move faster than co-option, and built for people who want to do, not just talk.

If this sounds old-fashioned, that’s because it is, and it works, we don’t need innovation for its own sake, we need media compost, not just another layer of glossy tech bling. We’re creating the soil for tomorrow’s social movements. Want to help us shovel the #techshit and start planting?

Join the project: https://unite.openworlds.info
Learn more: http://hamishcampbell.com
Spread the word: #OMN #openweb #4opens #grassrootsmedia #reboot

The #Hashtags Tell a Story: Building Trust in a Messy World

We live in a time of crisis. Climate, community, communication, all are breaking down. Our tools and platforms no longer serve us. To make sense of this, we need to tell stories. And in the digital world, hashtags are one of the most powerful ways we do this. But our hashtags don’t just tag, they trace the roots of our problems, and signpost paths out. Each one is a seed. Together, they are a map.

#dotcons – From #openweb to walled gardens. Once, the internet was a place of openness, built on free tools, shared protocols, and community spirit. Then came the #dotcom era, where profit became the driving force. Platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon, what we call the #dotcons, reshaped the web to lock us in and sell us out. A handful of corporations own the highways of our communication, and their algorithms guide what we see, say, and believe.

#dotcon = profit for a few, con for the rest.

#stupidindividualism – A trap we set for ourselves, we were promised empowerment. But what we got was individualism without solidarity. We’re told: brand yourself, hustle alone, curate your reality. But without community, there is no resilience. Without cooperation, there is no change.

#stupidindividualism is the cultural poison that tells you “you’re on your own.” It weakens us from the inside.

#deathcult – Forty years of neoliberalism. The last four decades have been shaped by a ruthless ideology, that markets solve everything, government should step back, and people must compete, not care. This is the #deathcult – a term for the deadly logic of late-stage capitalism. It’s taken over politics, media, even our sense of self.

Climate denial, gig work precarity, housing crises, mental health collapse - these are all symptoms.

#geekproblem – The failure of trust in tech. Even our allies, the people building tech to fix things, fall into a trap. The #geekproblem is when developers replace trust with control, more permissions, more encryption, more complexity. Instead of building with people, they build over them. The result? More unusable tools, more silos, more #techshit that ends up needing to be composted in abandoned GitHub repos.

#4opens is a way out of the mess, we need this new paths, based on simplicity, humility, and openness, a compass. If a project doesn’t pass the #4opens, it’s not building for the commons, it’s just making another silo.

#OMN, shovels and compost, we already have the tools, projects that build media flows, not platforms. To connect blogs and podcasts into open rivers of content, using simple tech instead of complicated “Web3” vaporware or #dotcons mess.

We’ve built up piles of #techshit. It’s time to pick up our #shovels, compost the waste, and grow something new.

Hashtags = Soft tools for hard times. We use soft metaphors because we live in soft systems: culture, emotion, trust. You can’t “solve” these with code alone. You need care, community, and storytelling. Yes, many demand hard, scientific “proofs” or “frameworks.” But if someone can’t feel the metaphor, they’re probably not ready for the work of rebuilding. We need to focus on those who can, who’ve seen that a different world is possible.

If you can understand that different ideologies shape different realities, then these hashtags will start to speak to you.

Let’s recap the key tags in the story:

#dotcons – Corporations that own and fence in our web

#failbook – Facebook and its culture of manipulation

#openweb – The decentralized, people-powered internet

#4opens – A compass for ethical, sustainable tech

#geekproblem – Tech that controls instead of empowers

#stupidindividualism – Isolation sold as freedom

#deathcult – Forty years of neoliberalism and its collapse

#OMN – Building networks, not silos

#techshit – All the unusable tools that ignore real needs

#shovels – The work we must do

#compost – Making good soil from past mistakes

We don’t need heroes, we need gardeners, grab a shovel, let’s build a future please.

The Spring OMN: The River of News Project

Originally Published 3/15/2016 — Updated 07/2025

“A river that needs crossing: political and tech blogs – On the political side, there is arrogance and ignorance; on the geek side, there is naivety and over-complexity.”

This project builds from a simple truth: we’re failing to communicate across divides that matter, and the #openweb continues to decline in the face of #dotcons like Meta (#failbook), Google, Amazon, and Apple.

The inspiration, the technical model draws from Dave Winer’s long-standing work on RSS, OPML, and “Rivers of News” feeds, simple, powerful tools that made the early web thrive. On the social and activist side, it’s grounded in the decades of grassroots media work by Hamish Campbell, through projects like Undercurrents, VisionOn.TV, and now the Open Media Network (OMN).

The gap, at the heart of the OMN’s mission, is bridging a difficult and persistent divide:

On the political/activist side: there is often arrogance and ignorance of tech.

On the geek/tech side: there’s a naïve faith in software as the solution, often built with little understanding of real-world social context.

We need projects that cross this river, building trust, tools, and practice between these worlds.

The metaphor: Springs, streams, and rivers. To make sense of the information ecosystem – and its decay – we use a flowing water metaphor:

Springs are individual sources: blogs, newsletters, independent media sites, the point of origin. Examples: Bella Caledonia, OpenDemocracy, personal activist blogs, or radical local sites.
Streams are subject-focused aggregators: curated flows around a theme or community, often mixing automated and human input. Examples: Mastodon feeds, PeerTube channels, activist email lists, thematic tag clouds (e.g., #climateaction), or OMN’s tag-based flows.
Rivers are the broad distributions of media: where most people actually consume content. Right now, these are dominated by enclosed, manipulative platforms. Examples: Meta’s Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, mainstream news websites, these are algorithmically filtered and socially isolating.

Currently, most alt/progressive content dies in the spring, never even making it to the stream, let alone the river. We’re left isolated, while the #dotcons dominate minds and discourse.

What the #OMN offers is a humble, yet radical, technical and political attempt to build open streams and rivers from our independent springs. The core Ideas:

Use RSS/Activertypub (open standards) as the glue for data portability.

Build lightweight, user-friendly tools that work with existing websites and platforms, not against them.

Encourage tag-based aggregation and curation, so we can collectively build shared narratives.

Keep it KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) to avoid the usual geek over-complexity.

Embed #4opens principles: open data, open source, open process, and open standards.

Why this matters (More than ever). We are living through a polycrisis: #climatechaos, rising fascism, digital enclosures, and mass social isolation. Our existing media channels are captured, and many of our alternative channels are either siloed or slowly dying off. We can no longer afford to just make “better content”, we must fix how that content flows.

The OMN is not a silver bullet, but it’s a shovel, a filter, a river guide, simple tools to help rebuild the #openweb and empower people again.

“The link is the currency of the web. In this, we all become richer.”

Want to help? Add tags to your posts. Start linking to other sources in your niche. Or just ask your favourite alt-media project to connect with others. Let’s replant the roots and reroute the rivers.

More: https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network

Talking About the #geekproblem in Funding

Funding the #openweb is a political act, yet most funding decisions today are framed in technical terms only, dominated by what we call the #geekproblem – a worldview where infrastructure is king, user needs are secondary, and social context is largely ignored.

Let’s unpack this with real-world examples and look at how we keep falling into this trap, and what we could do to climb out. The call-out for funding is phrased in social language, to build privacy-preserving tools, improve the commons, empower communities, decentralize infrastructure. But the funded projects rarely reach or empower actual communities. This is the disconnect, a cultural blind spot that stems from the #geekproblem.

We need to fund the social layer, as a strong backend is necessary, nobody is saying otherwise. But it’s not sufficient, the #openweb is not failing because of lack of backends. It’s failing because almost nobody knows they exist, cares, or knows how to use them. Take ActivityPub, the protocol behind Mastodon and the #fediverse. It had existed in various forms for years, but it only took off because:

Mastodon made it social.

It had good UX for regular people.

There was media buzz and community-building.

It offered emotional utility — a real alternative to Twitter at the moment people needed it.

Without this social glue, ActivityPub would have been another elegant-but-abandoned standard. A backend sitting on a shelf, this is the lesson:

To have an #openweb because we need to fund the people and projects who do social UX, onboarding, design, documentation, evangelism, and community organizing.

We currently keep building plumbing and call it a house, we then blame people for not living in it, feeding the #dotcons. Here’s a bitter irony:

Funding backend tools with no regard for adoption pathways just helps #dotcons.

The corporate world happily scoops up open source backend work (including ActivityPub) and wraps it in slick UX, marketing, and control. That’s how:

Meta is building Threads with ActivityPub.

Google funds protocol work to feed proprietary services.

Microsoft contributes to open source, then wraps it in Azure services.

They have the social layer, #PR, onboarding, monetization, network effects, and we hand them the backend work for free. We build the roads, they put up the toll booths.

The Fediverse is not a collection of protocols, it’s not a stack of servers, it’s a culture – or it was. And that culture is in crisis:

Burnout among developers.

Fractured community governance.

Rising influence of #NGOs and foundations pushing vertical, institutional models.

Selling out to mainstreaming partnerships (ex: EU outreach, Threads integration).

Social stagnation as microblogging dominates over creativity, curation, and real collaboration.

There is still potential, a web of relationships, tools, and practices built on trust rather than control, but we are not funding that potential. We are, instead, funding more tools, more protocols, more #techchurn.

What’s the pat out of this mess? We need to rebalance, right now funding overwhelmingly goes toward:

Code (especially backend)

Security and cryptography

Infrastructure-level "innovation"

We need to start funding:

Onboarding, documentation, UX

Social features, not just tech protocols

Network-building between grassroots media and communities

Outreach that isn’t just evangelism, but relationship-building

Public education, not just developer conferences

Human infrastructure — the people doing the messy, unglamorous work of care and connection

Think about projects like: The Open Media Network (OMN) – which builds out real linking between alt-media producers using existing standards like RSS and ActivityPub. It’s boring tech, but socially radical. This project aren’t shiny, but it matters.

We cannot build future paths by pretending the problem is just technical. The #geekproblem is a cultural blindness, the belief that the social will magically emerge once the tech is “good enough.” It won’t.

If you want a flourishing #openweb, you need to fund the people with shovels — the ones doing the care work, building bridges, and holding space for non-geek communities.

Until we do that, the #openweb will remain a ghost town of beautiful ruins – and a free R&D lab for the next generation of #dotcons.

#NGI #NLnet #NGIzero

Building Alt/Grassroots Media Networks to Challenge and Widen Traditional Media

The current ecosystem of alternative and grassroots media is too narrow in its imagination of what media could, and should, be. There’s a persistent naivety or, in some cases, a self-serving dishonesty. Many of the most “successful” progressive media groups continue to mimic #traditionalmedia without understanding, or addressing, the fact that they do not control their distribution. In effect, they’re renting space in someone else’s empire.

This is not just a mistake. It’s the same mistake that corporate media has been making for years: relying entirely on the #dotcons, especially Google/Meta/Facebook, to reach people. The algorithms shape the message. The gatekeepers never disappeared, they were replaced by code, powered by ad dollars.

Where are we now? Most grassroots and alt-media outlets do have websites, which means they technically sit on the #openweb. But their sites rarely, if ever, link to other alt-media projects. Despite the rhetoric of solidarity, there is little visible network of mutual support, not even basic hyperlinking between allies.

They podcast, another foot in the #openweb. Yet their outreach and engagement still happen inside #silos like Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts. In practice, this reinforces the #deathcult’s control of visibility. You can’t build a new world inside the structures of the old, not if the old is designed to undermine you. Why is this mess happening? Two dominant forces are shaping this failure:

On the big scale, we have the #Fashernista embrace of the #dotcons

Many alt-media producers came of age inside the mainstream tech stack. They built their platforms and careers inside the same closed systems they claim to challenge. Their political commitments might be radical, but their infrastructure choices are entirely conventional. This is the liberal, capitalist version of #mainstreaming – reform, not replacement.

On the small scale, #Encryptionist obsession and the #geekproblem

At the other extreme, we have alt-tech projects so obsessed with privacy and control that they create pointless parallel networks that no one uses. They fetishize encryption and “clean standards” over actual human use. The result is tech that is “safe” but irrelevant, drifting into a shrinking ghetto of #stupidindividualism. This is the libertarian version of #mainstreaming – escape, not engagement.

The has been practical work on the ground, over the last years an #openweb tech revolution built around ActivityPub and Fediverse, with projects like Mastodon, which in theory is guided by the #4opens. Yet, despite this, we still hit a wall of self-interest, naivety, and careerist short-termism from the media groups and meany individuals inside this movement.

What can we do? The web is made of links, the #openweb dies without them. If alt/grassroots media want to be part of the solution, they must start acting like a network. A simple step is to start linking to each other. Publicly. Repeatedly. On websites. On blogs. On Fediverse accounts. Use hashtags. Use lists. Tag each other. Cross-publish when relevant. This one act can change the ecosystem.

To solidify this, it’s past time for a new alt-media reboot, a small crew of linked-up, working examples that can pull others onto a sustainable, #openweb path. A real, living network of trust and mutual visibility. If we can show what’s possible, by doing it, we might begin to shift the culture. Let’s find the hopeful, grounded people to help shovel this forward.

If you’re interested in building the open media commons, join the #OMN conversation at https://unite.openworlds.info/explore/organizations to “Make the world you want to see.” or splash some dosh here https://opencollective.com/open-media-network we will make good use of it

The #OMN really complex? It’s not in the code – it’s in us. Let’s be blunt:

The Outside Threats:

The #dotcons (Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc.)

Surveillance capitalism

Attention farming

Closed distribution algorithms

Platform lock-in

The Internal Saboteurs:

Encryptionist geeks obsessed with crypto but forgetting human users

NGO social media managers who talk community but build silos

Process vampires who kill projects by committee

Fashionistas who follow hype cycles and abandon working tools for shiny vaporware

The #OMN is native to none of these tribes. That’s its strength. But also why it’s often ignored or misunderstood. No permissions, no gatekeeping, no central database. It just works. That’s the #KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

None of the usual suspects like this: Geeks: Don’t like using old tools like RSS or thinking socially. Politicos: Prefer being seen at the cutting edge, even if it leads nowhere. NGOs: Want measurable outcomes, not messy grassroots growth. But we need to stop building castles in the sky. Start building bridges instead.

The real block? The mental model of our tech and political culture. We’re still thinking in terms of silos, ownership, and control.

If we close everything, we are left with the evil – A bad outcome

What should be open? What is okay to be closed?

Let’s begin from a traditional liberal framing: Most social interactions should be OPEN, some private or sensitive interactions may be CLOSED.

This isn’t radical. It’s been a functional principle across free societies. But in our current digital culture, this simple framing is often flipped or ignored. Many developers, activists, and even funders uncritically push for closure, often in the name of privacy, safety and control, without recognizing what’s lost when everything becomes closed.

The power of OPEN is all good forms of social power and progress come from open processes:

Transparency builds trust.

Sharing creates knowledge and community.

Federation gives us alternatives to centralized control.

From the printing press to Wikipedia, openness has always been a powerful force for liberation, creativity, and justice. Meanwhile, much of the worst abuse and corruption festers in the dark:

Hidden surveillance (NSA/Five Eyes).

Closed algorithms (Facebook/YouTube).

Closed decision-making in opaque NGOs and foundations.

If we push everything into private silos or lock it behind paywalls, we kill the very culture that allows us to challenge and change the system. We are left with only the closed, and that’s not a world we want to live in.

A real-world example is needed? Let’s talk about the Diaspora project, 15 years ago, in response to Facebook’s rise, a group of well-meaning devs built a “privacy-first” social network. They rejected the openness of RSS and federated tech like XMPP and Atom. They wanted to start from scratch, build their own private network, and lock down data flows, for safety.

The result was a very predictable mess, Diaspora burned brightly and briefly, but never built a vibrant network. In contrast, existing open networks were shouted down, de-funded, and ignored. Ten years passed. Then, we had to reinvent the same open path with ActivityPub to get back to what #RSS and other open tools were already doing.

This is the #geekproblem, the idea that you can throw away working social infrastructure because it’s not “clean” or “cool”, and replace it with abstract, closed systems… usually ends in failure. Worse, it delays progress by a decade. Encryptionism, privacy dogma, and the closing of the commons.

Yes, privacy is important, nobody is arguing otherwise, but what many #encryptionists miss is that building only for privacy is building only for fear. You can’t build a shared culture on fear alone, you need to balance this with trust, transparency, and cooperation too. These require openness. When everything defaults to closed, the commons dies, and without the commons, there is no #openweb.

A politics of openness, is not just technical. it’s deeply social and political. It touches on human nature, ideology, and power. If you’re new to these ideas, start with some reading of the basics of Sociology (Wikipedia) and Political ideologies then ask what assumptions are built into this tech? Who does it empower? Who does it exclude?

Where to begin, to understand motivations and outcomes in #openweb development, it helps to name the ideological currents at play:

Conservatism → favors stability, hierarchy, closure.

Liberalism → favors rights, transparency, and balance.

Anarchism → favors decentralization, autonomy, and openness.

Much of the Fediverse, despite the tech mess, is functionally anarchist in ethos. But this is rarely understood or spoken aloud. We have the A (Anarchy) but not yet the O (Order). Let’s fix this by building the O in the Fediverse, rather than let the default path be imposed, where #NGOs and #foundations bring closed governance models wrapped in the fig leaf of “participation”, we should be working now to build native, open forms of governance.

That’s what the Open Governance Body (#OGB) is trying to do, to creating soft structure for an open culture. That’s what the #4opens help guide: basic principles for transparency and shared power. Let’s support these paths, as if we default to closure – either because of fear, control, or ideology – we kill the #openweb before it can grow.

Let’s remember, we are the stewards of the future commons, let’s keep the doors opens. Thoughts? Examples? Let’s keep this conversation alive, in the open.

Should we do something native in the Fediverse?

And what would that actually look like? Let’s be honest about what the #Fediverse is, despite all the code and standards talk, the heart of the Fediverse is anarchism – not in the chaos sense, but in the older meaning:

The letter A for anarkhia (‘without ruler’), circled by an O that stands for order or organization.

We have plenty of the A with decentralization, voluntary cooperation and resistance to imposed authority. But where’s the O? Of clear coordination, transparent process and federated trust and mediation?

Right now, we’re herding cats – each server, dev group, and community running off on their own, building tools and protocols, often without clear ways to connect, share governance, or defend against capture. This worked when we were small, it will not work now the big boys have arrived.

Warning from experience: The #EU outreach failure, we had a direct taste of this during the 2023–24 EU outreach process. It worked, but was quickly transitioned to the infrastructure of the #Fediverse without its soul. This isn’t theoretical, it is what happened to #FOSS transitioning to #opensource in the 2010s. This is what happens if we keep doing nothing? If we don’t act:

The foundation model is imposed — not built.

The fig leaf of “community governance” will be ignored.

A self-selecting oligarchy will form — friendly faces, perhaps, but still an eliteist power cleqe.

The Fediverse will be co-opted — just like we watched Google and Microsoft do to open source over the last 20 years.

Yes, #ActivityPub is “open” but openness alone doesn’t stop capture. Ask the #FSF, or look at meany #NGO paths in tech.

What would “native” governance look like? Built from our values, not imported from the institutions we’re resisting.

Soft Structure – Not no structure. The #OGB (Open Governance Body) project is one possible model: https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody It’s based on the #4opens and rooted in the real history of grassroots organising, not rigid control, but visible, participatory trust-based structure.
Real federation of trust -Imagine something like “trust instances”, each instance or org can choose to endorse certain process and values (e.g., 4opens, PGA hallmarks), creating a visible network of aligned projects. Not a central body, but a web of consent, the #OMN is an example of this.
Self-accountability + Diversity of tactics. Everyone agrees to transparency and openness. Everyone chooses their own path. Nobody is forced, but the community can see what you’re doing. This is essential for resisting #NGO co-option without creating more gatekeeping elitists

Are Platform Co-ops the Answer? Maybe, but… proceed with caution. Many tech co-op projects I’ve seen:

Become ossified in bureaucratic process

Elevate process geeks over users and communities

Reproduce #NGO behaviours under a different name

We’ve seen this in the #techcoop movement, especially in the UK, where platform co-ops often start with radical aims and drift into “doing B2B consulting for ethical startups.” Fine, but not the revolution we worked for. The stakes are real, we’re not just talking about tech here, we’re talking about:

Climate collapse

Social fragmentation

The rise of digital authoritarianism

We need an #openweb that reflects our values, #fediverse governance that protects the commons, and to move from just the A to the full A inside the O – the anarchist circle of voluntary structure. Let’s not wait for another hijacking, we need to build something native to the Fediverse before it’s too late.

The signal-to-noise problem of our #geekproblem in the #fediverse and the wider #openweb. Let’s be clear: platforms like #Mastodon and the #Fediverse are native openweb projects. They embody the values of the #4opens — open data, open source, open process, and open standards.

The value here is not in hardening and securing these systems to the teeth. People who are pushing for hyper-“security” are missing the point entirely. This isn’t about “common sense” dev practice. It’s about use-case. Public media content should be open — and that’s what the Fediverse is good at. It’s media. It’s conversation. It’s public dialogue. That’s what #ActivityPub is designed for. For private communication, we already have mature and well-tested encrypted tools: #Matrix, #Briar, #Signal, etc. Use those for whistleblowing, direct action, or anything sensitive.

Trying to bolt high-security models onto public communication tools breaks the value of the #Fediverse – its simplicity, accessibility, and low barrier to entry. Right now, the #Fediverse is a functional part of the #OMN – it’s a mesh of many small pieces, loosely joined, low-barrier, easy to host, easy to adapt, easy to grow. This is a fragile ecosystem, not a fortress. By pushing unnecessary “security” requirements, this #geekproblem are:

Scaring away potential users and admins

Raising technical barriers

Spreading #FUD

And most dangerously — undermining real-world activists who rely on open visibility and reach, not secrecy.

The #geekproblem, pushing complexity, abstraction, and fear over usability and trust, has been blocking the alt-tech world for over 20 years, it’s happening again. Let’s not let them smother this moment, the open web works when it’s messy, simple, and human.

You can help here https://opencollective.com/open-media-network

Why most #geekproblem software fails: Trust vs. control

Almost all of our #geekproblem software fails because it’s built with a mindset of control.

Control over users.
Control over systems.
Control over outcomes.

But all good societies, and all durable communities, are based on trust. When we ignore this, we don’t just write bad code, we produce #techshit that nobody uses, that burns out developers, and that confuses users. Then we start over… and call it “innovation.” That’s #techchurn.

Control-driven projects: Examples of failure

Diaspora
Touted as a Facebook alternative, it focused too much on cryptographic control and data silos — and forgot the social UX that makes people actually want to use social media. It never recovered from this early design flaw.

GNOME Online Accounts
Supposed to be a bridge between the desktop and online services. Instead, it became a privacy puzzle with unclear consent and broken trust. Control was enforced without social understanding.

Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB)
A radical peer-to-peer network, very promising. But became increasingly unusable due to overcomplicated trust mechanics and lack of simple social pathways for onboarding new users. The community stalled.

Matrix / Element
Still pushing forward, but has constant friction because it replicates many centralised “control” models in the name of “choice.” Powerful, yes. But still struggles with real decentralised trust outside geek bubbles.

🌱 Trust-Based Systems: What Works?

Fediverse / Mastodon
It works because it’s socially familiar and based on human trust over algorithmic control. You choose who to follow, what server you trust. And it grew because of this — not in spite of it.

Signal (Early Days)
Before turning more into a consumer app, Signal succeeded by focusing on trusted networks — your phonebook — and making end-to-end encryption invisible. It was about trust, not just security.

The real problem is in part to do it money and the funding of the wrong side of tech, in that most funding goes to things that feel safe:

Protocol development

Core backend infrastructure

“Governance” initiatives run by “neutral” NGOs

These are important up to a point, but this “safe” money ONLY reproduces the #geekproblem:

Building tech without communities

Tools without culture

Features without stories

When we do try to fund the social side, the interfaces, user onboarding, documentation, actual relationships, it too often gets handed to parasite #NGOs with no grassroots accountability. Just look at the endless pilot projects by digital rights NGOs that are abandoned 18 months later. Or the “governance frameworks” that never go anywhere. It’s a cycle of buzzwords over boots-on-the-ground.

The people with shovels, in a messy world, the only thing that might work is messy people with shovels, people who compost the shit, clean the broken tools, and patch the networks to keep things going.

These people are rarely funded.
They’re not “scalable.”
They don’t write grant-friendly proposals.
But without them, none of the tools work.

Who funds them?

A call to action: If we want an #openweb that survives the coming waves of #climatechaos and #mainstreaming sellouts… We need to fund trust, not control, to support social infrastructure, not just servers and specs, to back messy doers, not polished whitepapers. We need to talk about this, fund this, and build on this, or we’re just making more compost for the next #dotcons to grow from.

A conversation about money and the #openweb

#NLnet #NGI #NGIzero #EU #funding

A conversation about money and the #openweb

Let’s talk about the tension at the heart of the modern #openweb, and why so many grassroots builders and radical technologists find themselves on the outside looking in. Scene: A typical “open internet” conference in Europe. Excited NGO-funded attendee toots:

“Just booked my place for ePIC in Lille! My first Eurostar trip! It’s where I started 10 years ago with Mozilla. Time flies. #OpenBadges #VerifiableCredentials”

Me (a social tech outsider):

“These things are hopelessly expensive. To attend you have to worship the #deathcult. Hard to know what to do with these two-track approaches. Kinda can’t be #openweb if they’re locked behind temple walls.”

PS. It’s a metaphor. But not an empty one.

Two economies, two Internets, the #mainstreaming of the #openweb means that most so-called “open” events are inaccessible unless you:

Work for a #NGO, startup, or university with a travel budget

Have a career track aligned with #neoliberal frameworks

Can spend hundreds of pounds on accommodation, tickets, and travel

That’s not grassroots, not radical, not open – it’s branded openness for the networking class. The Reply:

“I think that’s a complicated way of saying you can’t afford to go?”

No, it’s not, it’s a social critique, and a common one from those of us who have spent decades building grassroots tech infrastructures and activist media, unpaid or underpaid, mostly ignored. It’s about asking: Who is the #openweb for, really?

Why this matters, when we raise issues like this, we’re not “being reply guys.” We’re making a point about the structural divides that are silencing and marginalising the very voices we need most in these spaces, the people actually building and defending the #openweb on the ground. You can’t build democratic tech by replicating elitist spaces and calling them “inclusive” just because the code is on GitHub. The pushback:

“You can’t live outside the mainstream, throw rocks at it, and complain when it doesn’t accommodate you.”

“I’ve never had a positive interaction with you. You wear that like a badge of honour. I’m muting you.”

Pause here, is this really the attitude we want? If you’re part of the #NGO world, if you have stable income and access to conference budgets, then you are in a position of power. When someone critiques that system, not you personally, but the structures you inhabit, and your reaction is to mute, dismiss, or mock them… something has gone wrong. This is exactly how we lose the #openweb. Not to tech giants, but to social silos within our own communities.

A different approach? Imagine this instead:

“You're right, many of these events are structurally exclusionary. I’ll raise this at the conference. How do you think we can bridge this divide without compromising either side?”

That’s the kind of solidarity we need, that’s how we stop #mainstreaming the death spiral, how we build together. If we want an #openweb that isn’t just another branded ladder for careerists, we have to defend the messy, painful, and vital presence of the grassroots, even when they come knocking without a conference pass.

Muting critique is easy, building bridges? That’s harder, but it’s the only thing worth doing right now.

#NLnet #NGI #NGIzero #EU #funding

Why most #geekproblem software fails: Trust vs. control

Talking about the #geekproblem in #openweb funding

Let’s be honest: we have a real and ongoing #geekproblem in how funding is allocated in the alt-tech and #openweb space, and it’s holding us back. The current push for infrastructure is important, but it’s not enough.

Yes, backend infrastructure is vital. You can’t build sustainable alternatives to #dotcons without solid plumbing. Funding projects like mesh networks, free firmware, and decentralised protocols, as #NLnet and others often do, is necessary work. BUT… If no one uses the infrastructure, or if it simply gets absorbed back into corporate platforms, then we’re just building tools for the next round of tech enclosures. That’s the pattern we’ve been trapped in for 20+ years.

Take the example of #ActivityPub. It would have remained a marginal protocol if #Mastodon hadn’t wrapped it in good UX, approachable design, and a culture people actually wanted to be part of. It was this social work, not just the code, that made the #Fediverse grow. That success was accidental, not structural, and we’re now coasting off that one cultural leap forward while backend devs get all the attention and funding. Culture first, code second is the hard truth:

The Fediverse is a culture first, and a standard second.

Where is the real funding for building sustainable social tools, interfaces, and communities? Where is the funding for actual alternatives to #dotcons that real people can use? This is one of the things we mean by the #geekproblem, the over-prioritisation of backend infrastructure in a vacuum, without acknowledging the social, political, and cultural layers needed for real systemic change. What’s the Risk? It’s that we end up with:

Endless dev churn.

Great tech no one uses.

A cultural vacuum that’s quickly filled by bad actors or subsumed by corporate rebranding.

Sound familiar? So what do we do?

Balance the Funding. Yes to infrastructure, but also fund user-facing projects, UI/UX work, community engagement, moderation tooling, multilingual outreach, and federated editorial practices. In other words, fund culture-building.
Support “Soft” Projects That Matter. There’s very little funding for projects like #OMN, #indymediaback, or #openwebgovernancebody because they don’t look like “innovation.” But these are the organic, lived tools that connect radical tech to real social movements.
Fund social protocols, not just transport protocols.

#4opens, the #PGA hallmarks, and trust-based governance are protocols too, just not the kind that compile into binaries. They help mediate conflict, keep projects focused, and build human networks that last.

Funding only “safe” backend tech guarantees it will either be: Irrelevant, co-opted, or turned into the next closed platform. We have to fund risky, visible, social alternatives if we want a different outcome. None of this is new, I like meany people been banging this drum since the #indymedia days and writing about it for decades. On this path, the #geekproblem isn’t about individuals, it’s a systemic blind spot. Let’s please take the time to balance funding tech AND the culture to finally move toward more humanistic paths.