{"id":130543,"date":"2026-06-10T21:29:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T21:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/beneath-the-enshittification-something-amazing-is-growing\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T21:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T21:31:10","slug":"beneath-the-enshittification-something-amazing-is-growing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/beneath-the-enshittification-something-amazing-is-growing\/","title":{"rendered":"Beneath The Enshittification, Something Amazing Is Growing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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from the rebuilding-a-better-internet<\/i> dept<\/h3>\n

Final month Terry Godier revealed a fantastic essay on his web site about \u201cthe boring internet<\/a>,\u201d discussing how the web that many people grew up with, the great, empowering, thrilling web that moved energy to the perimeters of the community relatively than the middle, continues to be there. It\u2019s simply hidden beneath enshittified business layers put there by corporations looking for to extract increasingly more from you. It\u2019s a fantastic learn and right here\u2019s only a snippet:<\/p>\n

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The web you grew up on will not be gone.<\/em><\/p>\n

A few of its business superstructure is, and extra of it’s going to go. The subsequent decade goes to be unusual for any firm whose worth proposition was: we host the place the place you speak to your mates.<\/em><\/p>\n

The platforms will hold mutating. The feeds will hold filling. The slop will hold rising. The grief is actual and you aren’t unsuitable to really feel it.<\/em><\/p>\n

However the precise web \u2014 the protocols, the federated companies, the plain-text instructions, the open feeds, the small servers, the private websites, the issues folks constructed when person and developer have been generally the identical phrase \u2014 continues to be proper there.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was not demolished.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was buried beneath a louder layer for some time.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Go learn the entire thing. You gained\u2019t remorse it. Because of this I wrote Protocols, Not Platforms<\/a>, it\u2019s why I\u2019ve been so targeted for years on serving to extra folks perceive the inherent power of distributing technological power<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, as Godier\u2019s piece notes, protocols are\u2026 boring. They alter slowly (for motive, since you want stability to construct on). They have an inclination to alter by consensus, which is messy. And relatively than having billion greenback corporations throwing a complete huge engineering group at making all the things work, within the protocol world, we depend on fixed experimentation by anybody who desires to experiment.<\/p>\n

Typically that produces foolish issues. Typically it produces issues that solely kinda work. And generally, it produces great new issues that may by no means have existed in a world of absolutely centralized companies.<\/p>\n

However, it takes time. And that may be irritating for these of us who wish to dwell in that higher future. The essential factor for folks to know, although, is that whereas the wonderful new breakthroughs within the protocol world might not get large headlines within the NY Occasions or flashy tales about trillion greenback IPOs, they’re constructing actual issues for actual folks, through which the individuals are an important half, relatively than the bankers or the billionaire execs trying to get richer.<\/p>\n

So I used to be excited lately to participate as a juror for the Open Social Awards, placed on by New_Public and Public Areas, reviewing a variety of tasks trying to construct on open social protocols (principally ATproto and ActivityPub). The vitality amongst builders proper now for what they’ll do on open social methods is actual, and it\u2019s constructing quick. Tim Trautmann lately wrote about this, saying \u201cthe nerds are building a new internet<\/a>.\u201d As he wrote:<\/p>\n

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The open internet of the nineties didn\u2019t win as a result of the instruments have been higher. It gained as a result of a important mass of individuals determined that the choice, a handful of AOL-style walled gardens selecting what everybody noticed, was not the long run they needed. Then they constructed their means out of it. Slowly, unglamorously, in rooms that seemed rather a lot like this one.<\/em><\/p>\n

Whether or not atproto finally ends up being the factor, or a stepping stone to the factor, I don\u2019t know. No one within the room claimed to know. However the work is actual, the apps are transport, and the folks constructing them are taking it severely with out taking themselves severely. That mixture is uncommon, and traditionally, it\u2019s the one which wins.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You may see that type of pleasure as effectively on this current video of a bunch of builders doing an ATproto hackathon, the place you see folks realizing in actual time how highly effective ATproto is in permitting you to construct a greater web:<\/p>\n

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