The Internet Is Not For Sharing
A Co-operation Manifesto
The internet is not for sharing. The internet is for co-operation.
Just think: what can one share over cables? Nothing, no shoes, no ships, no sailing wax — not even cabbages or kings¹. Nothing, except information. So sharing puts you into an information-oriented frame of mind. And this is the frame of the surveillance capitalists, to whom data is gold. Theirs is the technology and the business model and thinking that disrupts our society and violates our values.
Instead, we should recognise why we share that information, to what purpose. And that is co-operation, simple as that. Whether it is buying or selling something, setting up a date, or just chatting: the internet is an infrastructure that lets people co-operate over distances in space and distances in time. Thinking of co-operation puts you in a different frame of mind. Some call it a European way of thinking.
Now, co-operation is not a single ‘function’ that one can program straight away. Co-operation comes in as many forms as there are people (pun intended). In Europe, we know about that diversity, we cherish it and yet we make the effort, every day again, to overcome the differences and work together. Because we must and because it is fun.
So when I say the internet is an infrastructure for co-operation, I am not referring to a co-operation program. We actually use quite a few programs that support co-operation, such as Uber and AirBnB. These are valuable to us for that reason, because they provide support for a particular form of co-operation. Of course, they are valuable to their owners for quite a different reason: to suck as much information out of us as is possible. We take this for granted, as a toll we cannot evade.
But it need not be so. We could have an internet that provides support to citizens to set up their own forms of co-operation. Much like a spreadsheet lets you set up your own calculation model. Or, alternatively, think of a programming language for co-operation, if you like that better. Anyway, the theory behind such support has been worked out. A protocol is available. Reference implementations are available. The names are Perspectives and InPlace and they will be put into the public domain. Europe may be the old world, it brings forth new ideas.
But it is all a matter of timing. Right now, Mr. Zuckerberg is working on his next move. He envisions a Facebook with more locality. A Facebook with mini-applications, like WeChat, in China. It was to be expected — in fact, I wonder what took him so long (and the answer must be in economics).
He cloaks this next move in good intentions, speaking of trust and privacy. Now, we have reasons not to take Mr. Zuckerberg at his word, here. It is clear to me that Facebook could, indeed, create that internet for co-operation. But if you think you’ve seen surveillance capitalism yet, think again. This new Facebook would be version 2.0 in terms of invading our lives. Or, rather, our commons, our interactions with friends, with those whom we sport with, go to church with, with our parents, with our neighbours, you name it. There will be no escaping the all-seeing eye from Silicon Valley. This will further crumble our sovereignty, harm our economy and restrict the already compromised room we have to set out our own policies.
But it is not done yet. Europe has an opportunity, uniquely, maybe a first, to seize and get hold of. It could take the lead for once in this tech domain and provide a software infrastructure to its 500 million citizens that is truly in line with their values and interests.
For this to happen, we need to break away from the data-oriented frame of mind. We need to take co-operation seriously. We need to see the internet for what it really is. I do not see a lot of research into the internet as infrastructure for co-operation. I do not see any research in the economics of it. I don’t see development of a software stack to support it, in general terms.
This must change.
The Union should direct research into the basics of co-operation, the mathematics of its information flow and its conceptual framework. It should encourage the development of a software ecosystem to support it. It should promote the market for co-operation modelling, creating a new economy to support the new software ecosystem. It should enable special interest groups to support themselves with this new infrastructure, drawing them into this new frame of mind. All this can be done and it should be done quickly.
Instead, we could just sit and wait. But Mr. Zuckerberg does not wait. He makes the future happen — his future.
This is the fourth column in a series. The previous one was: Fixing reality: the game is on! Here is the series introduction.
¹ Taken from: Lewis Carrol, The Walrus and the Carpenter, lines 60–66.