To escape our silo thinking

Right now, there’s a widening gap between political organising culture and technical development culture, and neither side is entirely wrong, but both are incomplete.

On the political side, there can be a strong understanding of power, institutions, and social dynamics – but sometimes limited understanding of the underlying technical structures that shape digital reality.

On the technical side, there is deep expertise in systems and architecture – but often a tendency to treat social problems as purely technical challenges, leading to over-complex solutions that struggle to survive real-world communities.

Both cultures end up building silos. Not because they intend to fragment the ecosystem, but because silos offer clarity, autonomy, and a sense of control. Unfortunately, isolated projects – whether political or technical – cannot compete with the continental-scale infrastructures built by the #dotcons.

The deeper issue is that we are collectively neglecting the shared infrastructure beneath all of this: the #openweb itself. Returning to simple shared ground, if we want to rebuild cooperation, we need to start from principles both sides can recognise. The web is fundamentally made of relationships:

• Articles are data objects.

• Data moves through flows.

• Feeds are living links that carry those flows across networks.

• Links – not platforms – are where long-term value accumulates.

• Synchronisation and redundancy are what create resilience, memory, and continuity.

This isn’t a political claim or a technical ideology, it’s simply how the web works when it is healthy. For political organisers, this means understanding that content alone isn’t enough; influence comes from shaping flows and networks. For engineers, this means recognising that technical architecture always encodes social assumptions – and usability, trust, and governance cannot be abstracted away.

Why silos fail. Many alternative media and grassroots tech projects emerge with strong intentions, but remain isolated. Without shared protocols, interoperability, and common infrastructure, each becomes another temporary island. Meanwhile, legislation and platform enclosure continue shrinking the open internet, reinforcing dependency on centralised systems.

The question is not whether we build alternatives, we already are. The question is whether those alternatives connect into a living ecosystem or remain fragmented experiments. The bridge is federation as social and technical practice. Projects rooted in federation – like ActivityPub and related #openweb work – offer a path, because they align technical architecture with social values: decentralised but connected, autonomous but interoperable and “native” diverse without fragmentation.

The #OMN approach tries to extend this principle beyond software into social organisation with shared commons instead of platform ownership, collaboration instead of central coordination and replication instead of scaling hierarchies. This isn’t anti-engineering or anti-politics. It’s an attempt to integrate both.

Crossing the river together, political organisers bring understanding of power, context, and collective action. Engineers bring understanding of systems, resilience, and infrastructure, neither alone is enough.

The challenge is to move away from siloed thinking toward shared stewardship of the #openweb – treating it not as a product or ideology, but as a living ecosystem that requires ongoing care.

We don’t need perfect agreement to start building bridges. We just need enough shared understanding to reconnect the flows. Because ultimately, the goal isn’t to build another island, it’s to rebuild the river.