If we want open soft­ware to win, we need to get off our arm­chairs and com­pe­te.

Ben Werd­mül­ler:

Or­ga­niza­ti­ons who en­cou­ra­ge end­less dis­cus­sion about web tech­no­lo­gies are, in a very real way, pro­mo­ting the de­ath of the open web. The same is true for or­ga­niza­ti­ons that choo­se to snark about com­pa­nies like Face­book and Goog­le ra­ther than un­der­stan­ding that users are ac­tual­ly em­powered by their pro­ducts. We need to meet peo­p­le whe­re they’re at - so­me­thing the open web com­mu­ni­ty has been fai­ling at abysmal­ly. We are blindsi­ded by tech­nost­al­gia and have lost sight of in­no­va­ti­on, and in do­ing so, we era­se the agen­cy of our own users.

“They can’t pos­si­bly want this,” we say, dis­mis­si­ve­ly, re­mem­be­ring our ear­ly web and the way things used to be. Guess what: yes they fuck­ing do.

[…]

The web is no lon­ger a mo­ve­ment: it’s a mar­ket. The­re is no van­guard of su­per-users who are more qua­li­fied to say which pro­ducts and tech­no­lo­gies peo­p­le should use, just as the­re should be no van­guard of peo­p­le more qua­li­fied than others to make po­li­ti­cal de­cis­i­ons. Con­su­mers will speak with their wal­lets, just as ci­ti­zens speak with their vo­tes.

If we want pro­ducts that pro­tect peo­p­le’s pri­va­cy and give peo­p­le con­trol over their data and iden­ti­ties - and we ab­so­lut­e­ly should - then we have to make them, ship them, and do it quick­ly so we can ite­ra­te, re­fi­ne and make so­me­thing that peo­p­le re­al­ly love and want to pay for. This isn’t po­li­tics, it’s in­no­va­ti­on. The busi­ness mo­dels that pro­mo­te sur­veil­lan­ce and take con­trol can be sub­ver­ted: if we de­ci­de to com­pe­te, we can sneak up and eat their lunch.