A Working Library: Coming Home

And yet: as much as the Fediverse is different (the governing structures, the incentives, the moderation, the absence of ads and engagement tricks), so much of it is also unsettlingly familiar—the same small boxes, the same few buttons, the same mechanics of following and being followed. The same babbling, tumbling, rushing stream of thoughts. I can’t tell if we’re stuck with this design because it’s familiar, or if it’s familiar because we’re stuck. Very likely it’s me that’s stuck, fixed in place while everything rushes around me, hoping for a gap, a break, a warm rock to rest awhile on. Longing for a mode of communication that lifts me up instead of wiping me out.

This has been my recitence to investing time in fediverse as well. We’ve created something that’s free of the profit motives of corporate social media, but retains many of the Skinner box attributes of it. Perhaps we should not seek to recreate the corporate web free of profit motives, but something else entirely.

https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/coming-home