The internet has become an extractive and fragile monoculture. But we can revitalize it using lessons learned by ecologists.
The Internet Transition
The Internet is allowing us to build a richer, more complex society but the way in which we Internet today is failing to support the governance systems that a more complex world requires. I take a look at why these issues are related, try to develop an intuition for a way forward, and point at the emerging field that is coming together to build that future.
Millions of Volunteers Are Keeping the Internet Human. For Now.
We’re never going back to the human internet we had. But we can hope for a better internet than the AI-dominated one that is emerging, writes Sarah Gilbert.
The Boring Internet
The internet you grew up on isn't dying. A commercial veneer glued on top of it is.
The Boring Internet
The internet you grew up on isn't dying. A commercial veneer glued on top of it is.
How the small web is creating an anti-slop internet
What is the small web? A new crop of platforms are answering algorithmic fatigue with a return to human-curated basics.
The Public Interest Internet
What if the internet were public interest technology? Is that too wildly speculative? I think not. I am not talking about a utopian project here — a public interest internet would be a glorious imperfect mess and it would be far from problem-free. But while there is a lot of solid thinking about various digital issues or pieces of internet infrastructure (much of which I rely upon here), I have yet to read to an answer to this question: What global digital architecture should we assemble if we take seriously the idea that the internet should be public interest technology?
A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden
A newly revived philosophy for publishing personal knowledge on the web
Gathering the Custodians of the Internet: Lessons from the First CivilServant Summit - Citizens and Technology Lab
An agenda for citizen behavioral science to maintain and protect the communities we love online.
What you can do with AT Protocol - Applied Meteorology
Years of centralized platforms have limited our thinking about what's possible on the web.
Every Country Has Its Own Internet Now
A patchwork of privacy laws, teen social media bans, and "digital sovereignty" pushes means the Internet you see depends entirely on where you're standing.
Pluralistic: The Post-American Internet (01 Jan 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
On December 28th, I delivered a speech entitled "A post-American, enshittification-resistant internet" for 39C3, the 39th Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg, Germany. This is the transcript of that speech.
Gradients of intimacy and creating shelter: An interview with Erin Kissane
How might we use nature as an inspiration for creating online communities?
Governable Stacks against Digital Colonialism
Critics have been converging around the logic of colonialism to describe the Internet economy. If we are serious about the laden language of the colonial, we should be ready to learn from struggles against pre-digital empires and colonial regimes. Although acts of insurrection may attract more attention, one thing leaders and theorists of anticolonial resistance have stressed persistently is the centrality of self-governance in everyday life as both a means and end of their movements. But the dominant platforms for online communities are not well-suited for durable self-governing. Resistance often relies on the same colonial firms it opposes. What would community-governed technologies look like? This paper introduces the concept of “governable stacks”, a framework for self-governing as resistance to digital colonialism.
You Might Debate It — If You Could See It
Writing about the big beautiful mess that is making things for the world wide web.
An Ode to Links
Writing about the big beautiful mess that is making things for the world wide web.