Thought on Redecentralisation

The commons we’ve enclosed

Terence Eden:

I don’t claim to be any good at user experience – far from it. But I despair at some of the redecentralised efforts I see springing up. They are technically brilliant, and follow the open-source philosophy of scratching one’s own itch. And they all – without fail – are terrible to use.

Redecentralisation won’t happen because of us nerds. It must happen despite us. Despite our ingenuity and despite our self-infatuation. It must be inclusive, and put user-needs at its very heart.

I think that this cuts to the heart of a lot of different movements that are happening currently: IndieWeb, federated social networks, and static site generators. Props to all the folks out there working on all of this stuff, but it is still very belt-and-braces. And I get the feeling that there’s a lot of wheel reinventing going on.