In tech, the last 20 years have been a mess of #fashernista trends and the ongoing #geekproblem, a compost heap of broken promises and abandoned projects. It's obvious if you lift the lid and really look. The glossy hype fades fast, the rot underneath remains.

Much of what we call "innovation" ended up as #techshit - rushed, bloated, short-sighted code that needs serious composting if we’re going to grow anything real. #Openweb dreams have been buried under a #dotcons landfill.

The real challenge now isn’t just pointing at the pile (fun as that can be), it's handing the next generation proper shovels - real tools, real critical thinking, real spaces for building rooted, resilient, open tech.

A hopeful note: some #fashernistas are starting to apologize and acknowledge the mess. That's good compost material too. Let's keep composting. Let's keep planting.

The #OMN is a simple but radical project to shift power decisively from the #geekproblem and the #dotcons back to the people who actually make media, the grassroots producers.

From this shared “commons,” a new digital, economic, and social ecosystem can grow that is messy, open, and native to our needs.

And as with everything human, what we do with that power is up to us.

Why haven’t we been dealing with this for the last ten years? Because we’ve been stuck in a toxic loop of fear and distraction, paralysis disguised as progress. Climate change, ecological breakdown, and runaway tech aren’t new problems — but instead of facing them, we numbed ourselves with apps, brands, and shallow performance activism. The well-meaning among us drank the #NGO poison, clinging to PR-friendly campaigns and institutional funding while losing the radical roots that once gave movements their strength. This cowardice was sold as strategy. All the while, the #geekproblem festered — where a narrow clique of techbros built tools for control, not community, and shut the rest of us out.

https://hamishcampbell.com

A letter from the margins of the #openweb

All the #OMN projects I’ve worked on over the years, from #OGB to #indymediaback, are not directly about social change. They are about creating the possibility of social change. A subtle, but critical difference.

We don’t claim to have the answers. What we do offer are tools, networks, and processes that make it easier for people to imagine that the world can be different, and then help them to take the first step. Yet here's the mess that keeps being pushed over us.

We are told this […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/a-letter-from-the-margins-of-the-openweb/

“Climate Realism”

It's pastime more people raised their heads, the Council on Foreign Relations (#CFR)—the think tank of the U.S. political establishment, just published a new statement calling for what they call “Climate Realism.” This is a slick repackaging of old imperial dogmas for a world that’s catching fire. The same #neoliberalism mess in a fresh suit, t the priests' sermon. 1.5°C Is Dead - And they admit it, to their credit, CFR doesn’t sugarcoat the situation. They finally acknowledge […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/climate-realism/

Can people engage with the #4opens process?

The #4opens is a completely obverse social restating of the #FOSS development model — but with a critical edition: The return of #openprocess, something we’ve lost over the last 10 years due to our reliance on encrypted chat.With this in mind, what is still #blocking the #openweb reboot? One thing I’ve learned from the last five years of the #openweb reboot is this: The #geekproblem is inadequate for the scale of change and challenge we face. Currently, the #geekproblem is a HARD […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/can-people-engage-with-the-4opens-process/

News, the signal-to-noise mess

Almost all our posting in the #openweb and in the #dotcons in response to #mainstreaming news is noise. It’s reactive, fragmented, performative. We scroll, we rage, we boost, we dunk, but we don’t build. Sometimes, someone posts something thoughtful, something deep, meaningful. But it vanishes in the churn. The system is designed this way.

Even on our #openweb, where we have more autonomy, we are mirroring this spectacle path, feeding it attention, reposting its narratives, amplifying […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/news-the-signal-to-noise-mess/

Regime change in the west

There’s a "normal" dangerous illusion still clinging to liberal democracies: that we’re in a time of political turbulence, but the foundations remain intact. That, somehow, we’ll "course correct." But this need to be seen as blinded thinking.

What is obvious is that we’re actually experiencing is regime change, not in some distant land, but right here in the West. And it’s not coming from tanks or coups, but through the ballot box, boardrooms, social media algorithms, and #NGO […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/regime-change-in-the-west/

Mainstreaming: Building Grassroots Balance

Our history of involvement in #EU digital outreach and policy meetings has made one thing starkly clear, our #openweb is deeply entangled in the process of #mainstreaming, a messy, often co-optive dynamic where grassroots voices are softened, diluted, and redirected into bureaucracy, then in the end they are simply #blocked. Yes, while there is value in taking part, it's also a wake-up call.

The push to shape digital paths from above is strong. But without active grassroots alternatives, […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/mainstreaming-building-grassroots-balance/

Rebooting the #openweb in a good way

The #Fediverse exists, and more than that, it’s alive and kicking. Sure, it might be a messy, chaotic, a bit fragmented, and yes, still niche. But let’s not underplay it, this is the healthiest corners of the internet we’ve got. Tens of million accounts, hundreds of thousands active people, sometimes talking about how we build our digital spaces from the bottom up.

Yep, there are the cat videos, the #fluffys and the #spikys. But also an in-group debate is bubbling away about who […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/rebooting-the-openweb-in-a-good-way/

A sharp take https://hamishcampbell.com/a-sharp-take/ That’s the #geekproblem: not the code, but the refusal to look at the problem outside the code.

A sharp take

In the end, all social action happens through generalized talk, categories, metaphors, shorthand. That’s how language works. But we live in a cultural amnesia where this is forgotten, mistaken for “common sense.” The #OMN embraces this messy, human space, while the #geekproblem seeks rigid machine-like CONTROL. They’re often technically right, but socially intolerant. We, by contrast, are often technically wrong, but humanly right. What we need is a bridge between these approaches, […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/a-sharp-take/

Critique without action is just noise. If we want real change, we need to move beyond commentary and into building. From #GeekProblem to #OMN Solutions https://hamishcampbell.com/from-geekproblem-to-omn-solutions/

From #GeekProblem to #OMN Solutions

Not for the first time, and certainly not the last, we hit the same wall: misunderstanding and misdirection. The #geekproblem isn't just about bad code or poor decisions, it’s about an unhealthy, almost inhuman obsession with control. Where we are now is the federated model, which is a useful half step, a half-measure?

Federation is an interesting paradox, as it panders to control, offering people their own little digital kingdoms. It dilutes control, spreading authority so thinly that […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/from-geekproblem-to-omn-solutions/

The Failure of #Mainstreaming – What Comes Next?

It should be painfully obvious by now that all the current #mainstreaming paths have failed. Whether we look at politics, technology, media, or activism, the same patterns emerge, co-option, stagnation, and eventual collapse under their own mess and contradictions.

The valid question isn’t whether mainstreaming has failed, it has. The real question is: What do we do about it? This applies just as much to our efforts to reboot the #openweb as it does to broader struggles in the "real […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/the-failure-of-mainstreaming-what-comes-next/

The #mainstreaming influx is a HUGE distraction to our #fashernista and #geekproblem people, and this is leading to a fuckup on usability https://hamishcampbell.com/a-guest-post-the-mess-of-the-current-openweb-path-a-users-experience/

A guest post – The Mess of the Current #OpenWeb Path: A User’s Experience

Setting up a #Mastodon account to move away from supremacist platforms like #Twitter, #Threads, #Bluesky, and #LinkedIn felt like the right step. But almost immediately, I ran into one of the core failures of the so-called #openweb—drastic post length limits, artificial restrictions, and a general lack of usability. At first glance, Mastodon appears no different from the mainstream platforms it’s supposed to replace. With the post lengths, why are we still replicating big tech […]

https://hamishcampbell.com/a-guest-post-the-mess-of-the-current-openweb-path-a-users-experience/

The issue with #FOSS tech development

The failure of many #FOSS projects is a failure to move from theory to practice. The issue is that developers work in isolation, disconnected from grassroots needs, and get lost in perfectionism rather than delivering functional prototypes.

The #geekproblem dominates, many coders prioritize control, abstract debates, or self-contained experiments over practical, usable tools for real-world communities. This is why projects stall: they are not built with activists in mind. Meanwhile, centralized platforms continue to consolidate power, because they offer simple, accessible, and functional solutions, despite their deep flaws.

To break this cycle, we need:
* Practical iteration—build rough, working solutions rather than endless theorizing.
* #4opens culture—embrace open process, standards, and real collaboration.
* Bridging solutions—tech that activists can actually use, not just developer-driven experiments.
* Funding models beyond #NGO traps—so projects remain independent and sustainable.

The fight for the #openweb is not only about resisting #dotcons but creating alternatives people can and will use. Can we move beyond abstraction and actually make history?

Development - Next Steps for #OGB

The #OGB (Open Governance Body) is a native #openweb project to enable decentralized, transparent governance for grassroots media and activist networks. However, like many open projects, it faces significant development roadblocks.

Currently, the challenge is moving beyond theory into implementation. The stalled dev work at http://unite.openworlds.info highlights the common issue: lack of dedicated developer focus. The problem isn’t just writing code; it’s building a bridge between activist needs and functional, people-friendly tools. The #geekproblem looms large, developers work in isolation, disconnected from real-world social movements, or they get caught in perfectionism instead of delivering working prototypes.

What #OGB needs is practical iteration: a rough, working proof of concept, rather than endlessly debating the ideal model. The project requires coders willing to work openly, embracing the #4opens (open source, open standards, open process, open data). The biggest blocker? A culture that prioritizes control over collaboration.

The development of #IndymediaBack

The reboot of #Indymedia (#IndymediaBack) is about reclaiming grassroots, open, and radical media infrastructure outside of the control of corporate platforms and #dotcons. However, the development side has stalled due to the same issues that have stalled other #openweb projects, lack of sustained coder engagement, resistance in centralized funding, and the dominance of closed silos.

The challenge is building tech that works for activists, not just developers. The original Indymedia relied on early open-source tools. This means moving beyond tech-fetishist projects that scratch a developer’s itch while ignoring real-world community.

A trust-based federated publishing network is the goal. The #OMN (Open Media Network) framework already outlines how to create syndicated media flows using #4opens. The stalled dev site at http://unite.openworlds.info needs committed developers who care about media as a movement, not just a tech experiment.

Without serious investment in #DIY, people-friendly, open-source alternatives, activists will remain trapped inside the #mainstreaming of social media platforms. The question is: can we finally push through the #geekproblem and make this happen?