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I’ll probably run out of air before folks get this but, hey, one more time for those in the back:
If you’re creating “alternatives to #BigTech” that scale vertically, you’re doing it wrong. You’ll never beat Big Tech at vertical scale. They invented the game. They’ll destroy you at it every time. And say you somehow do manage it… congratulations, you’ve just become *checks notes* Big Tech. *golf claps*
So what do you do?
You limit vertical scale and #design for horizontal scale.
What does it mean to design for horizontal scale?
It means limiting the growth of individual instances of a service (e.g., number of accounts, etc.) and investing in ensuring that as many different people and organisations can run their own and that they can all talk to one another and interoperate.
It means keeping the power relationships between instances as level as possible.
Take it to its logical conclusion and you get the #SmallWeb: instances of one.
@aral Instances of a municipality seem appropriate. Instances of one require grandmas, disabled folx and kids to host their own, so in oder to not exclude them... Municipal services should include instance hosting.
@KarlHeinzHasliP @aral I've actually been thinking about an anarchist model for tech, based on small communities and mutual aid, considering writing a blog post about it soonish.
@ainmosni Please do, I look forward to reading it. #SmallTech is basically anarchist tech.
@aral @KarlHeinzHasliP It is, but from what I've seen, your focus is on individuals, while I want to do a more small community focus.
Not that I dislike your work, far from it. :)
@ainmosni What makes up small communities? Individuals. How do you model a small community in which individuals retain their sovereignty without modelling individuals with sovereignty first? The reason I start at modelling the individual is because I don’t know how else to design a digital and networked system in which people exist as as people (in other words, with mathematically-inalienable rights that protect the integrity of their personhood).
@aral @KarlHeinzHasliP Yeah I know what you mean, but I'm coming from a bit of a different angle. Not everyone can do all the tech stuff, just like not everyone can do any skilled profession. So, instead of every user trying to self host their tech stuff, the more technically inclined can do the tech stuff for their community, while other members take care of other needs. This is how you create small self sufficient communities where people take care of each other via mutual aid.
@ainmosni But what if it didn’t take technical knowledge to setup or maintain your own place?
I see what you’re proposing as (likely very valuable) stopgaps. But stopgaps that are dependent on the benevolence of their own small gods. The small gods might be kinder than the big gods (or not) but they‘re gods nevertheless. If we’re to look beyond stopgaps, I feel we need to design systems without gods. No matter their girth or character.
@aral @KarlHeinzHasliP They are small gods only when taken in a vacuum. What I'm talking about is that these people provide this service to the community that they are dependent on in other ways.
It's unrealistic to require people to all have enough skills to set up and, especially, maintain their own tech presence, just like not everyone can be a plumber, or whatever.
Having a plug-and-play solution would work initially, but would just put the authority at the original builder.
@KarlHeinzHasliP @aral I wouldn't even go that extreme, small communities tend to be closer and know each other by name. And just the interdependency alone helps keep people honest.
@KarlHeinzHasliP @aral They do, but anonymity makes it a lot easier.
@ainmosni @aral @KarlHeinzHasliP I wonder if it does us any good to recognise that we're in a digital Dark Age at the moment (I've described it here: https://davelane.nz/darkage) and that we look to emulate the previous Enlightenment that brought literacy to much of the world with the aim of achieving similar results with digital literacy...