- Dec 2022
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techpolicy.press techpolicy.press
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The crucial divide, just as with the Mastodon code, is between the programming haves and have-nots, the coders and non-coders. The openness of the ecosystem means that it is in principle a lot more democratic, as it creates meaningful possibilities to shape it by contributing code. But this ability is not available to the majority of users, leading to a sort of caste society, built on top of an open source infrastructure. There is no realistic scenario in which all users learn to code – therefore participatory governance approaches, which take control of the code away from the hands of the coders, and into collective decision-making processes, is the only way forward.
This comes back to my 'tech smaller than us', governance and technological control over a tool should reside within the context-specific group of users using it. Which does not mean every single person within the group needs all the skills to control the tool, just that the group has it within itself, and decides on how that control is used a group. Vgl [[Networked Agency 20160818213155]] and [[Technologie kleiner dan ons 20160818122905]] n:: This would e.g. imply in Tarkowski's text that a community run instance would ensure having at least 1 member contribute code to Mastodon, and strategically operate to ensure that. Is this also an element wrt the above about Paradox of Open, as the non-monetary benefits of contributing may be well be enumerated as part of the operating costs of a community instance?
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