Open source
Source code can be inspected, modified, and shared under its license.
Field guide
Beyond the Platforms
What would cultural infrastructure look like if communities could understand, operate, shape, and leave the systems they depend on?
A short manifesto
Convenience and community capability can coexist
Centralized services can be extremely useful. The question is what capabilities communities might want to retain alongside them.
Who owns the spaces where we gather?
A useful service can still concentrate control over discovery, moderation, pricing, and access. Communities may want options they can operate or leave.
What happens to our history?
Event pages, posts, recordings, and relationships can disappear when an account closes or a provider changes direction. Portable records make cultural memory more durable.
Can communities operate their own infrastructure?
Sometimes. The real question includes labor, cost, maintenance, accessibility, governance, and succession—not only whether software can be installed.
Can we leave without starting over?
Interoperable formats, owned domains, exports, feeds, and clear account boundaries make an exit possible even when hosted services are convenient today.
What would technology designed for communities optimize for?
Capability, consent, understandable operation, repair, memory, and meaningful governance may matter more than maximum engagement.
Vocabulary
Different words describe different powers
Open source, federation, decentralization, and community ownership overlap, but none automatically guarantees the others.
Self-hosted
An individual or organization operates the service infrastructure.
Federated
Independent services communicate through shared protocols.
Decentralized
Control or operation is distributed across multiple parts of a system.
Interoperable
Different tools can exchange information and work together.
Portable
Data or identity can move without being rebuilt from scratch.
Peer-to-peer
Participants connect directly or share responsibilities without one central service path.
Local-first
The local copy and local interaction remain primary, with networking added around them.
Community-owned
A community has meaningful control over operation, decisions, responsibility, and succession.
Community ownership is a governance question, not merely a network topology.
Navigate by intent
Start with what you want to do
The field guide compares models and tradeoffs without asking you to learn every protocol first.
I want to… Find and share events→I want to… Publish video→I want to… Livestream→I want to… Publish music or podcasts→I want to… Communicate with a group→I want to… Run a social community→I want to… Own a web identity→I want to… Communicate without normal Internet→I want to… Host something ourselves→
Offline and local networks
What if ordinary Internet access is unavailable?
Compare a phone-only Bluetooth approach with dedicated low-power LoRa radio networks.