LoTR already showed us that having “One Ring to rule them all” only leads to a mind-numbingly linear plot to slog on towards Mount Doom, feeling miserable all the time, until the moment that that decision can be undone and fate is once more on our side. /s
Fediverse’s AS/AP has had a fantastic history. It has managed to unite folks from across the social web to co-create open standards as formal W3C Recommendations. Then subsequently a big ecosystem of apps and services emerged that allowed a many ‘fedizens’ to interact, socialize and create communities and vibrant culture together. Fragile, imperfect, yet blooming, with emergent properties and great potential still untapped.
And all that wholly driven by the commons, not co-opted by commercial interests. This is rather (or totally?) unique!
Yet in hindsight it was also clear that trouble was brewing. That the commons pretty much hadn’t managed to evolve the open standards since 2018. That everyone in the ecosystem was doing their own thing. A care-free creation of AS/AP protocol flavors, with mostly code-only innovations for others to reverse-engineer. Leading to protocol decay, tech debt, and inefficient whack-a-mole driven development.
With technology adoption progressing it was clear that commercial interest would follow, and that a gradual corporate takeover was set in. Right now we are Middle Earth seeing the forces of Sauron at our doorstep and we have neither a standing army nor a Fellowship of the Ring to hold them back. We are only individual peasants with pitchforks now.
At this moment I see only two options for where AS/AP will go:
- There will be a corporate takeover, and the future of the fediverse will be decided by corporations.
- Another protocol will “win” the protocol wars and they’ll see corporate takeover instead.
If option 1) plays out then fedi will become indistinguishable for “the corporate web” and current nich/nice/rich cultural achievements will be pushed to the fringes. But they’ll still exist. If option 2) plays out, then a niche AS/AP fediverse will continue to exist for many, many years. Just like usenet and bulleting boards.
The corporate takeover reality is where Evan’s initiative with the SWF aligns. The SWF looks to be created by the enterpreneurial types, pragmatic, capitalist, and loudly proclaiming: "Come along, folks. Fediverse is open for business
".
Yet if it weren’t the SWF then other similar clubs would come. I have no doubt that Evan has the best intentions wrt the future of the Fediverse. How they hold up against a corporate onslaught remains to be seen. But a non-profit SWF that manages to evolve protocol standards may be preferable to, say, seeing Meta or another big corporation throwing a couple million $$$ into a developer portal and become the leading ‘king of the ecosystem’.
Luckily things aren’t as bleak. Beyond corporate takeover we find …
The Social Web
One thing that the Fediverse has with its diversity, and the commons as a grassroots movement brings with its chaos, is resilience. Someone can claim to be a leader, and can say how things ought to be. Yet reality is spun up collectively and from there the truth appears by emergence.
In the same way that no one can say what the logo of the Fediverse should be, no one can dictate what protocols are involved with the Social Web or not. If I look at the term “Social Web” it is painfully obvious that it cannot be co-opted by anyone. It consists of two parts:
- Social. Encompasses all the ways that humans (and other living beings) relate to each other.
- Web. How technology helps us do this.
To me the social web is any technological innovation that supports our social interaction online. That means many different protocols, variations thereof, experiments. Any creativity that may lead to progress.
Another observation is that nowadays (and maybe at any time) the commons is way better equiped to truly innovate, whereas increasingly the corporate world has mastered the dark arts of Enshittification. Where the commons is very, very bad is to keep ownership of their innovations. The dynamics in our hypercapitalist society are such that we continue to let corporations harvest the low-hanging fruits of our labour and see a minority make unfair advantage of that.
Had we been better at organizing in our grassroots commons, then with AS/AP protocol standards a 3rd option would be ours:
- The “Let’s Play and Win Our Own Game” strategy as outlined by @darius in 2020.
In my honest opinion for AS/AP this option is no longer available. But for any innovation that relates to the social web where a corporate stranglehold hasn’t set in, the field is totally open for the commons to take a strong position.
The initiative is all ours to organize to defend Middle Earth and put Sauron on a leash. 