The Club of the Exalted Elite

Dedicated to the people, projects & protocols that all value privacy & security, the reattainment of control over the web for individuals through decentralized protocols, uncensorable technologies, interoperability, libre & open-source software, & an internet that allows & builds upon the fact that infrastructure costs money, but that people will over time contribute their own services & infrastructure to the network that supports the subsidization of the internet.

A web that supports & builds on the foundational principles the internet forefathers prophesied. The freedom of information. Something we may take for granted of today, but that has changed the world, as we know it.

Paid for by everyone, with the idea that people like to share, create & contribute over time. Not sacrificing the values the internet was created for by lowering the barrier of entry of its use, or selling out its values for corporate profits.

The Alternative

The alternative is small interconnected forums, chat rooms & blogs. Personal websites, with distinct design, text & images. It's a future (or past), that is subsidized collectively by everyone, for the reason of everyone's gain in knowledge, by sharing information, interacting & communicating with people. Because no one is trying to pay for everyone's internet infrastructure, it's a model that supports the majority of people both consuming, but to at some point pay it forward by producing or helping support the internet with their own material or services. This type of internet uses protocols, interconnectivity, large amount of smaller distributors, servers that communicate through the use of these protocol standards. These protocols are the foundation of the internet, but it's trending more & more away from this way of using the internet. Losing its soul.

The internet is not supposed to replace real life, but act as a resource for information sharing, a supporting pillar of reality. The internet used to be a niche place with a relatively high barrier of entry in comparison to today, with a decentralized way of operating, that simply avoided a lot of the problems of today's internet. One may easily forget, centralization of power of the internet is a horrible idea, for the plain reason of, the internet was created to be used between trusted computers, never meant for privacy or security. Decentralization is a bit like only acting within trusted, separate communities of people & places on the internet, splitting responsibility, liability & risk between these server & services operators. With the freedom of information as the foundation of the internet.

Today's internet looks a lot different, with large companies, with big servers, subsidized instead by corporate investors that one day expect large returns. With the modern internet's foundational way of ever making money of free services being through advertising & the sale of personal data for primarily commercial ends.

These corporations do not only deal in questionable ethical practices, but stifles the development of the internet by prioritizing corporate profits, as expected. This means that every app is built from scratch to maintain complete control, does not follow any protocols, or interoperability standards & does at its core not support sharing of information or knowledge, only to the extent it will create profits for them. But it also inherits the problem of scale, when operating with tens or hundreds of millions of users. Having to implement algorithms instead of humans to moderate content, handle government relations & co-operation, social & political pressures while following different principles, not in line with the forefathers of the internet, or its earliest idealists, but instead corporate interests. There simply can never be any trust when it comes to how the internet is structured today.

I salute the exalted people that take the path less traveled by financially supporting, locally supplying services & infrastructure through self-hosting, partaking through use of alternative services & software & those spreading the word through education, discussion & development of the alternative internet.