AJ Sadauskas<p><span class="h-card"><a href="https://urbanists.social/@cwicseolfor" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>cwicseolfor</span></a></span> <span class="h-card"><a href="https://mstdn.party/@hakfoo" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>hakfoo</span></a></span> <span class="h-card"><a href="https://sauropods.win/@futurebird" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>futurebird</span></a></span> <span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@lnlyisol" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>lnlyisol</span></a></span> There was also the politics of it.<br><br>For a long time, Silicon Valley positioned itself as being the enlightened, socially-conscious, pro-freedom, pro-consumer alternative disrupting established cartels and vested interests.<br><br>Instead of believing what the old media barons tell you about the War in Iraq and Saddam's WMDs, our platforms let anyone be a publisher!<br><br>Instead of the RIAA's boy bands and lip syncing pop idols, we allow talented independent artists to be heard!<br><br>Instead of IBM, and later Microsoft, having a monopoly, buy our products instead! Think different! Don't be evil! It just works!<br><br>And then once everyone was locked into the walled gardens, the enshittification began.<br><br>Now.<br><br>What we really should have collectively been insisting on was a genuinely enlightened, socially-conscious, pro-freedom, pro-consumer alternative.<br><br>Member-owned, community-run non-profits. Creating open source software, based on open standards and protocols.<br><br>Where you own, and are free to repair, and are free to tweak or upgrade, your hardware. Which comes pre-installed with open source software from member-owned non-profits.<br><br>The Wikipedia/Wikimedia Foundation model works for encyclopaedias. So let's do that for search too.<br><br>And let's not leave the design of tech to just the computer science majors and MBAs. Let's get some social science and humanities folks in that design process too.<br><br>We can still do it.<br><br>But we need to start by recognising that tech, and who owns it, and who designs it, and who makes decisions about it, is a political issue.<br><br>We, the people, need to make those decisions. Not just the billionaire VCs and CEOs.<br><br><a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/opensource" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>OpenSource</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/foss" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>FOSS</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/enshittification" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>enshittification</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/fediverse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Fediverse</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/openstandards" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>OpenStandards</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/linux" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Linux</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/wikimedia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Wikimedia</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/degoogle" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>deGoogle</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/google" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Google</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/meta" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Meta</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/facebook" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Facebook</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/apple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Apple</span></a> <a href="https://gts.sadauskas.id.au/tags/microsoft" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Microsoft</span></a></p>