OK so it's been busy lately but I do intend to get back to this and post some more thoughts, including the "so what are you actually thinking about doing" part. Also make the site a bit less ... uh ... spartan.
In the meantime: There's this new Overture Maps Foundation thing which sounds great on the surface - and right in line with the sorts of things that I'm thinking about here - but led by, among others: Microsoft, Meta, Amazon? Meant to be "complementary" to OpenStreetMap but I'll admit I'm a bit skeptical.
After a lot of rambling, the basic point in my last post was that we generate a lot of data that is used by others for obscene profit, and all we get out of that is some convenience and the illusion of autonomy.
I also brushed on the point that a lot of the software that tracks, measures, and manipulates us is based on open source software, or uses standards that are open and well-understood. So why do we consent to the invasive tracking and manipulation? Why not just use open source software for everything?
Well. As it turns out - open source software actually terrible in a lot of ways. Yes, you can self-host various things, run your own servers or pay for hosting, and feel very smug that you've outwitted Google and Facebook and the rest. But aside from the fact that you probably didn't outwit anyone, most normal humans can't self-host anything, with or without the aid of paid hosting providers.
The fact is that open source software is technically great, but suffers from multiple flaws:
Open source software is our flawed hero - the basic skills and capabilities are there, just not the discipline, refinement, or resources.
That seems fixable, right? The basic problem could be solved by taking open source software, ironing out its inconsistencies, adding features, and filling in the gaps. Then we can self-host everything! Right?
As it turns out, the world is imperfect and unfair, and no big problem has an easy solution. Fixing the sprawling mass of RFCs, standards, specifications, and software in the open source world is entirely possible, but it's not practical with volunteer effort alone - it requires a centralized effort with vision, process, goals, and accountability.
That's where OSDAP could help. More on this next.
Hello! I'm Elliott and you're looking at the beginnings of an idea: Open Standards for Data Access and Privacy. I've been thinking about this since late 2018 but life has been getting in the way of progress, as it tends to do.
What's this all about? The really quick version is that the huge amounts of data that we generate, and the implications that follow, are not really controlled by us, even though the data is rightfully our own. The basic tools exist to fix this, but are out of reach of most people. The idea behind OSDAP is to make it possible for all of us to own our selves.
All of the people in this world are consumers, and we generate a lot of data: where we go, what we do, what we enjoy, what we avoid, who we befriend and who we don't. In aggregate we generate even more: what do we do with our group of friends? Do viewers of sci-fi movies buy more snacks than romantic comedy fans? Will someone like me do business with a company if it does (or doesn't) do a thing? What is traffic like on I-85 heading to Buckhead from Midtown right now, and what will it be in 3 hours on the way back? Should I take MARTA or catch a ride? What will I eat for dinner? The possibilities are limited only by potential profitability.
We, the sources of these data, do not profit directly from all of this. Indirectly, there are obvious and tangible benefits - we can go online and for free (for free!) we can access social media and communicate with friends and strangers around the globe; we can find the weather at our destinations, how long it will take to get there, if a taxi is more convenient than transit, what good restaurants are nearby, and so on. Our smartphones have an eerily precognitive ability to anticipate our actions and desires, and we use this to our benefit, usually with no thought of the implications.
But nothing is really free. We are the free-range hens of the technology world - we're given a good lot, but the real profit is not in us but in the things we leave behind, which are enabled by the largesse of our patron-overlords. The quality of our output is dictated by the provisions we receive: at an individual level we are a cost to be optimized and our behavior is best if it is guided and controlled. Despite the façade of privacy settings, when we switch on a device or log in to a service, we are consenting to detailed tracking and analysis of everything that we do, for the profit of others. There's no practical way to "opt out" from all of this - we've all come to rely on our devices and services, and anything that we do to preserve some modicum of privacy will in the end only inconvenience us. No setting fundamentally changes what is collected, sold, or presented to us if we want to use these systems and services.
As Shoshana Zuboff explained in her excellent (if depressing) book, we've moved beyond the point that the data we leave behind is the product - now, our own behavior is the product, and our data is used to predict and steer our actions to benefit advertisers.
Our modern conveniences tend to come with costs that we pay without knowing. We have gotten into the habit of expecting things for free - web searches, news, social media, data storage in the cloud, streaming music and video, instantaneous communication - but none of that is free; we're just paying for it in ways we don't know and don't understand, and we do not have the opportunity to profit from these transactions, nor do we realistically have any say as to whether these transactions take place - we are continuously bought, sold, and traded, but we don't have any authority in the transactions, and we are never the primary beneficiaries. This is a growing driver of inequality - if we don't have disposable income, we are of little interest to advertisers; because of this, we are excluded in various ways from the conveniences that those with disposable income don't realize they're privileged with. The more money we have to spend, the more seamless our lives are, as access to our money is traded for server time that lowers the difficulty level of our lives. As William Gibson famously said - "The future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed." The beneficiaries of the world's technological progress are those with money - an upper-class life lives in a future which provides power; a middle-class life lives in the present, which provides convenience; a low-income life endures continuous burdens, crises, and expenses. In the end, though, the great equalizer is that we have little control over who benefits from the details of our lives.
It doesn't have to be this way! If you look under the hood, you'll find that the massive apparatus that tracks and manipulates us in exchange for convenience is powered, at some level, by open standards, and might even run on open source software. Why submit to the status quo if we can break away and run these things on our own, or pay some service that we can trust to be responsible with our data? We can have the convenience without selling our selves to every corporation with money, right?
In theory - yes. In practice - no. Right now, even for highly competent and motivated people, replacing all of the "free" convenient services we use is complicated and time consuming. For everyone else (this is most people), it's simply out of reach. This is where I hope to start with OSDAP.
I hate cliffhangers, but - more about OSDAP, and where to go next, in my next post!