Opensource

I think that democratic processes should exist where this is power imbalance, exploitation and no safety release valve that lets the vulnerable people freely step away. E.g., we have democracy to prevent authoritarian rule, and because it’s hard to move country. We have workers co-ops and unions to prevent the power imbalance between bosses, customers and workers.

So, a co-op of taxi drivers makes sense to me, because all of those conditions exist: Uber is dominant, they own the two-sided market so it’s more difficult for customers or drivers leave, and the drivers are exploited because they have few alternatives.

That's pretty much it. Not all products needs to be a coop. But most products would benefit from a coop. I can give you one example, imagine if all the coffee shops in your region decide to coop, they organize their prices, decide who gets which special beans, and create an app that allows the customer to not only know what kind of special coffee they have to offer. Or even provide a better engagement with it's customer base.

(And remove the "coffee shop owner" which is usually the guy who never had brewed a cup of coffee in their life)

On the fediverse, we already have co-ops where each user gets a stake in the rules, moderation, etc. We also have instances that are run as more of a benevolent dictatorship, but where everyone is there freely. We have single-user instances too. To me, this is the best of all worlds, because everyone can choose the governance model that suits them, and we can all co-operate together.

That's the point. Governance for the people who use the tool and the ~~factories~~ apps...

This is where my opinion depends on what you’re arguing for. Is your suggestion to tie the governance to the protocol itself, or to push for more co-operatively run instances and software? If the latter, I’m all for it :) but if it’s the former, to me that’s a step backward, because we’re placing a checkpoint on who can join the network that removes the safety release valves and pushes people into a democratic system that they might not agree with.

The later, more instances to be able to help each other. For example, why not the instances about art in your region and the theater be organized by both groups combined? And if this works, why not add the Anime folks. If there is trouble, split the parts that aren't following the "bigger" side, and both can co-exist.

For me, this the essence of the argument. But I’m not quite sure what the keys are to: what power and influence do they unlock? Open source makes sense to me because the people doing the work have a say in what’s happening. I’m nervous to give power to users, who are not doing work, over volunteers, who are doing work. But then, when there is funding involved, I think that naturally leads to more users having more influence, because they can always take it away if their priorities are not met. See Snowdrift Co-op for instance. To me, the biggest solution is finding a way to fund open source projects directly from users.

Think the key as a "group of people with the same intention".

A single instance of Mastodon alone won't do a thing. But the whole group would be able to make a difference. Or Piefed, I want to have an instance at home for my friends to organize the D&D games for example. This instance alone won't solve the D&D as a whole thing, but would allow for other groups to organize, maybe. (I'm stretching the point here)