go trolling through the archives, you creeper, and you might find some tales about my early adult experience with letting rich corporations make massive amounts of money by organizing my time and effort. short version: it sucked hard. so i was very reluctant to join facebook, but eventually was lured in by access to a communication network of most of the people i interact with in real life. i've been on it almost a year now, and it does involve quite a bit of my time and effort. it seems to me that the basic service they provide me, which i see as organizing my online communication, could be done much better.
this is of course to be expected under the theory that if you want to use the "free" service of a for-profit corporation that is making people super fucking rich, expect that it will still cost you somehow, whether directly (e.g. exposure to manipulative advertising, addiction, people like this getting your data) or as part of the public effects (the long list of harmful effects of inequality).
i suggest that a way organizing online communication could be done better is by a non-profit cooperative network of users who acknowledge those costs up front and instead invest them in a bit of effort towards controlling their own affairs by paying small costs time towards organizing. so a time "cost" of using their interface could maybe be "paid" by participating in elections, or helping with programming, or maybe user-voted real life charitable work. perhaps modestly greater privileges could accompany greater contribution, as decided democratically.
having now expunged my thoughts on the matter, i should process to investigate what groups are already working on this. stay tuned!
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