Recently, I went to my friend’s office for lunch and joked that these were “reparations for harvesting my personal data since I was 11”. I also remarked that it was kind of impressive as I don’t think I could’ve monetized my personal data like this (to the point of having kombucha on tap, and more lunch options than one could meaningfully try in one meal).
While somewhat funny, it also reflects the way I’ve been slowly socialised to think about software as in terms of these things:
Monetization, MRR, ARR. Users. Maximizing. All-consuming, constantly devouring and growing. Extractive. The half-arsed GDPR compliance consent modals where the option that has the least cookies takes the most clicks to get to. Series whatever funding.
When did things become like this, and when did I start thinking this way about software?
Part of repairing my relationship with technology and recovering my sense of agency has involved thinking about the joy I felt as a kid online. In my teenage years, I stubbornly believed that I wasn’t quite cut out for computer stuff because I was bad at math (whatever that meant to my younger self). I don’t know how I typecast myself that way. It’s all quite sad, because my kid self loved learning about customising my Neopets page and fiddling with Tumblr themes. I co-hosted a Facebook group for pen spinning with other kids my age, that ended up growing to include people who actually competed in the United Pen Spinning Board Tournament (sadly the message board no longer exists). At some point, my mother realised I was using Facebook as a kid and decided to block it on our home network. In response to that, I learnt how to use Tor after much googling, and willingly waited 5 minutes for pages to load, just because I really wanted to play Mousehunt (and also because it guaranteed me a failsafe common conversational topic with my classmates). There was a sense of unbridled agency, as a kid growing up online, that I kind of lost along the way.
Another part of this repair has involved discovering other people online who embody a sense of play and wonder when it comes to technology. Lately, I came across (we)bsite, which invites people to think about their dreams for the internet. There are opportunities for small, anonymous interactions (seeing others’ cursors), and enjoying non-intrusive collective online presence. (I’ve also just learnt that you can have live cursor chat by pressing “/”, so I’ll try that later at night since most people who’ve been on the site seem to be in US time.)
Here are some of the things I’ve stumbled upon and have found restorative and joyful:
// feral web
// natto.dev
// cursor chat
// society for poetic computation
Dreaming is a powerful thing. I dream of software that doesn’t want to eat the world. I dream of software that can just be enough for me and my community. Software that delights and tends to the better angels of ourselves. I want to make more things to play with even if nobody else uses them, like a little space where you can drag and drop a few things, and a frontend for viewing papers for a conference. Dream a little electric dream for me.