Anil Dash’s piece is a wake-up call for the #OpenWeb.
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Thank you for writing this.
One example: I’ve created an online tool for teaching myself Portuguese. I’ve spent 100s of hours writing code, building vocabulary lists, have professionally recorded ~20k audio clips, and my biggest fear is that an AI gets hold of a link and starts downloading the clips millions of times, blowing up my costs. So I turned off account creation and don’t let anyone else in. I would love to share, but I don’t know how to do so safely.
@tchambers maybe the future of the “open” web is trust-based communities. I trust you, you can invite people you trust.
Cottagecore dark web.
Might be federated, not sure.
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@tchambers maybe the future of the “open” web is trust-based communities. I trust you, you can invite people you trust.
Cottagecore dark web.
Might be federated, not sure.
@dancast I lke that.
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@tchambers Yes. Read this. And always skip the AI-summary when you search, click through to the proper sites. @anildash
@hakona @tchambers @anildash Search using https://noai.duckduckgo.com.
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Anil Dash’s piece is a wake-up call for the #OpenWeb. The threats he outlines feel scarily accurate, a "perfect storm" that needs us all to pause and then consider how to counter them. Definitely worth your time. cc: @anildash
https://www.anildash.com/2026/03/27/endgame-open-web/@tchambers @anildash Anyone with an #indieweb or #smolweb site should keep a 'Community' list of around seven other sites they have full confidence in being curated by human sweat. That way we strengthen the Human Web.
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@dancast I lke that.
@tchambers oh great, now I'm looking through the ActivityPub protocol and trying to figure out if I can integrate it as an authentication platform. Surely this will end well.
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@tchambers @anildash Anyone with an #indieweb or #smolweb site should keep a 'Community' list of around seven other sites they have full confidence in being curated by human sweat. That way we strengthen the Human Web.
@khleedril @tchambers @anildash have you seen human.json? https://robida.net/entries/2026/03/08/the-humanjson-protocol Basically a machine-readable version of your idea. This + a blogroll might work well together
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@khleedril @tchambers @anildash have you seen human.json? https://robida.net/entries/2026/03/08/the-humanjson-protocol Basically a machine-readable version of your idea. This + a blogroll might work well together
@dominik @tchambers @anildash I have seen it, but I don't like the 'machine readable' part; that goes against the whole ethos of the idea.
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@dominik @tchambers @anildash I have seen it, but I don't like the 'machine readable' part; that goes against the whole ethos of the idea.
@khleedril @tchambers @anildash yeah, I get that point. There's a browser extension and I like seeing that little green icon show up on personal websites, though
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@khleedril @tchambers @anildash have you seen human.json? https://robida.net/entries/2026/03/08/the-humanjson-protocol Basically a machine-readable version of your idea. This + a blogroll might work well together
@dominik @tchambers @anildash With regards to a blogroll, I would urge people to keep them relatively short so that the list can realistically be actively maintained.
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@hakona @tchambers @anildash Search using https://noai.duckduckgo.com.
@khleedril I'm a paid up Kagi-user myself. @tchambers @anildash
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@tchambers @anildash Anyone with an #indieweb or #smolweb site should keep a 'Community' list of around seven other sites they have full confidence in being curated by human sweat. That way we strengthen the Human Web.
@khleedril @tchambers @anildash I came here to suggest the blogroll as well, but yeah, I’ve also added quite a bit to it over the years. The nice thing is you could have section of the blogroll that you keep fairly small (~7) of your indieweb pals. I have 15 in my top section
️. I agree though that linking to other places on the web, specifically other indie sites has become more and more crucial to keeping the web healthy.
I do what I can I think
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I have mixed feelings though. I Ioved the early internet. I'm still here, on Mastodon, because it represents the open web that has meant so much to me.
But I think there is a "tragedy of the commons" problem. It may not be possible to have an economy of sharing freely because there will always be people who take greedily. Who overgraze the commons with their own sheep. Who take all the candy in the "take one" bowl.
I feel weird about knowing that the content I share here on Mastodon is probably being scraped by not one but HUNDREDS of LLMs.
And I'm not sure there is any way to stop them while keeping the web open. The only way to stop someone else from overgrazing our grass may be to fence in the grass and mark it as OURS.
Maybe the open web was always a beautiful doomed dream, because of human nature.
@marymessall @tchambers @anildash I disagree. We are in this situation only because the tech companies have been able to ignore the laws and basically do everything they wish. At every single step, politics and law enforcement could have made them pay for their well-documented crimes, but they chose not to. Even after judging that these companies have committed wrongdoing, the consequences have been so low that it didn't matter. Politics, law and society can create an environment that would protect the free sharing of resources. It has been done for libraries, for example, and there are laws that were supposed to protect the open web.
This situation is only inevitable if we believe widespread corruption is inevitable. It is not a coincidence that this is happening in a period where fascism is coming back.
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@marymessall @tchambers @anildash I disagree. We are in this situation only because the tech companies have been able to ignore the laws and basically do everything they wish. At every single step, politics and law enforcement could have made them pay for their well-documented crimes, but they chose not to. Even after judging that these companies have committed wrongdoing, the consequences have been so low that it didn't matter. Politics, law and society can create an environment that would protect the free sharing of resources. It has been done for libraries, for example, and there are laws that were supposed to protect the open web.
This situation is only inevitable if we believe widespread corruption is inevitable. It is not a coincidence that this is happening in a period where fascism is coming back.
@antopatriarca @marymessall @tchambers @anildash
Well, some lawmakers definitely DO make it expensive for tech companies to break the law:
No, not the US lawmakers, I get that - but there are other lawmakers in the world...
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@antopatriarca @marymessall @tchambers @anildash
Well, some lawmakers definitely DO make it expensive for tech companies to break the law:
No, not the US lawmakers, I get that - but there are other lawmakers in the world...
@madsenandersc @marymessall @tchambers @anildash I know, I live in Europe. But I still feel they do too little and there are still too many politicians in Europe proposing laws that would damage the open web to feel comfortable.
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@madsenandersc @marymessall @tchambers @anildash I know, I live in Europe. But I still feel they do too little and there are still too many politicians in Europe proposing laws that would damage the open web to feel comfortable.
@antopatriarca @marymessall @tchambers @anildash
They do need a legal framework for their actions, so things definitely takes time - and perhaps sometimes to much time to be really effective. Also, there are misguided efforts like the age verification system, that most likely first came from a good place, and then was warped by political interests from bad actors.
I think this sums up the two sides pretty well, actually. You can either have things happening at a slow pace (but then be pretty well debated and thought through), or happening at a faster pace but be done haphazardly in some cases.
Balance is key here, and while I'm not exactly one to make excuses for politicians, I also do understand, that what might seem obvious to someone who live and breathe the open web, it's not necessarily the case for someone who does not.
