I'm writing a research proposal about economic solidarity and its really hitting me hard just how much open source, blockchain and civic tech has just totally failed to provide any meaningful answer to hyper extractive platforms despite a decade head start.

What do we have to show for 5+ years of research into DAOs?

How many people are paying their rent with crypto infrastructure?

Where is the work into infrastructure that can be deployed by a workers union w/ no Linux experience?

What's the point of any decentralised tech?

The mainstream has truly reached the end of it’s imagination. What today’s darling new platform? Substack. A Tinyletter clone that somehow manages to have fewer features, produces uglier emails and charges a premium margin for subscriptions.

Turns out, there are dozens of IRL modes for small scale economic solidarity that transcend political and geographic divides. They are poorly documented but 2020 just happened to provide a worldwide baseline test of their resilience.

As for FOSS, why should anyone in 2020 pay attention to a movement that both provided the foundational technologies for every single billion dollar company and its oppressive infrastructure, and yet ensured all except its star advocates burnt out in underpaid labour conditions?