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2/ Recovering free will online

The limitations of #online: sometimes #offline is useful. Think big: if offline were easy, what could you do?

Practically, #NNCP, #UUCP, and #Scuttlebutt all are here today and can help show the way.

3/ Recovering free will online

Free our physical and data link layers. You don't have to use Internet from a phone company. Try #LoRA or #XBee radios, or 5GHz point-to-point. Or, heck, NNCP over USB sticks in a car. #Meshtastic is an off-the-grid IM system that does this. What else could you do if you dream big here?

4/ Recovering free will online

We are used to thinking that it is quite difficult for two devices on the Internet to talk to each other. What would be possible if it were easy?

Actually, today, it is. #Tor, #cjdns, #libp2p and others make this happen.

5/ Recovering free will online

We're used to costs rising dramatically when something gets popular. What if that weren't the case? Could you take on Youtube from your garage?

Things like #IPFS, #dat, and #Peertube are making these ideas possible, right now.

6/ Recovering free will online

We have so many walled gardens, from Github to Facebook. It doesn't have to be this way.

#Mastodon itself is a powerful example.

7/ Recovering free will online

What about freedom from manipulation? Isn't that, fundamentally, what the attention economy is all about?

If we could dramatically lower the cost of running services and the barrier to entry, would that make non-profits more common? Would it weaken the ad economy? Think of the possibilities.

8/ Recovering free will online

If privacy and anonymity were more common, what would that mean for us? No more creepy ads because targeting wouldn't be possible? Less guarded conversations?

9/ Recovering free will online

Let's look at the tech. For data link and networking, of course there are #LoRA, and #XBee. #meshtastic is atop #LoRA. #Briar can form a #Bluetooth mesh. #NNCP is a powerful delay-tolerant network. #cjdns and #Hyperboria form mesh networks, optionally using the existing Internet as a backhaul; their goal is nothing less than replacing the Internet. #Tor of course provides some of this too, at a different layer.

10/ Recovering free will online

P2P infrastructure is being built out. #IPFS, #dat, #libp2p, and #Bittorrent are all common. Did you know you can build an offline-capable, delay-tolerant mesh with #Syncthing? Or run #git atop #scuttlebutt?

11/ I've written a lot about instant messengers and chat here lately, so I'll not repeat myself, but check out those threads if you're interested.

Also in social media, of course, there is #Mastodon, #Pixelfed, and #Peertube - particularly interesting due to its use of #Webtorrent.