Creating a Distributed Tech Industry
Computers have been a major part of my life since I started calling dial-up bulletin board systems (BBS) in the late 1980s, when I was far too young. By the early 1990s I was running one instead. By the end of the decade, I was in at the ground floor of an MIT startup, where I was able to succeed and create a good life for myself.
My career was centered in Open Source technology, and I was strongly influenced by MIT hacker culture. My specific experience in the industry has showed me a different perspective on how technology is used today than a typical user would have. Where some people see how the industry “works”, I see patterns of change with adjusting motivations and a shifting outside world.
One of the pattern is between centralization and decentralization.
You can observe this patterns in terms of the computers themselves. Running software on mainframes were centralized. Running software on PCs were decentralized. Shifting PC software to terminal servers centralizes again. Cloud providers centralize even more. These days we have super computers in our pockets, which offload a lot of the work for users to cloud based services.
You can also view this pattern in terms of how services are offered to customers, although the push towards centralization has been backed by a strong financial incentive. Customers want services as cheaply as possible, which advocates for economies of scale. Inventors want high return on investment, which requires massive revenue.
While each of these financially motivated decisions makes sense in the moment, the longer term impact often works against the best interest of the person.
While centralizing ISP providers does create better economies of scale, it also puts a lot of power into the hands of CEOs, whose personal financial goals are tied to maximizing shareholder value.
This is not always in the best interest of customers, who may find that their prices keep inching upwards, and support, when needed, keeps getting further away. Do we, as consumers, want to maximize shareholder value? Or receive the services we need at the lowest possible price?
This is not always in the best interest of employees, who may find themselves shifted to being an independent contractor, or just receiving a pink slip. Do we, as employees, want to maximize shareholder value? Or do work in exchange for prosperity, opportunity and stability?
I’ve been looking for my next job opportunity for some time now, while also attempting to push some of my own business plans forward. It’s tough at the moment though, because my industry just abandoned hundreds of thousands of skilled employees who had recently been creating the real value in their organizations. It’s hard to compete against the talent I see around me, when the technology skills I’ve developed over the years have have been replaced by automation.
My skills still have value, but they go against the prevailing wisdom of the industry. My skills are useful in the oncoming wave of decentralization.
For a sneak preview of what I see coming, look at the current changes in Social Media. The world’s richest man took control of Twitter, and dramatically shifted the culture of the company in order to achieve his goals. This resulted in an alienation of users, and a fair number of former employees shifting to work on a competing service at Meta.
It also resulted in growth and exposure for the growing Fediverse, which Meta is currently at least giving lip service to participating in.
Right now users are used to corporate owned centralized platforms. I see a huge advantage to decentralized platforms like Mastodon, Peertube and other Fediverse services. Managing services closer to the users has a benefit. Aligning the management of services with local communities can help decrease the power that Silicon Valley and its Wall Street owners have on how we perform commerce.
While the Fediverse is only a small piece of a bigger pie, I can see how local tech companies could manage community clouds which host ecommerce solutions that exist to enable local small retail and manufacturing, rather than providing users with access to the cheapest resources possible in the entire world.
We, as consumers, can treat ourselves, as employees, better.
We, as engineers, can choose to collaborate in order to make this option available to more people.
We, as investors, can choose to shift our investments from predatory markets to local businesses. While investing in digital Ponzi schemes like Cryptocurrencies can provide a high short term investment, investing in local commerce can help create a stronger community around you.
While sharing the tools with other engineers in other communities may not provide you with the intellectual property rights that enables economic empires, it can reshape the world.
Choosing a new path can hurt in the short term. My attempts have left me fairly broke after COVID killed my investment. People who have already been abandoned by the industry in these latest rounds of layoffs have less to lose, and a lot to potentially gain.
The future of the economy depends on the self-organization of hundreds of thousands of laid off workers.
Pass it on.
