Dave writes very eloquently that centralisation (e.g. one Facebook, one Twitter) creates clear Achilles heels for news networks, especially. I think he’s right that people need to have a piece of their own infrastructure on the internet, just as most people have some ability to do limited DIY around the house.

A fractional horsepower news network is not the way to sell it to end users, but I don’t think that was the point. The key is that the self-owned infrastructure shouldn’t feel like hard work. This is what (e.g.) Dropbox does so well.

I already post to Facebook and Twitter from this blog rather than directly, and try to flow comments back out to my blog where they are backed up. Imagine that we all did this without it seeming hard? What would that internet look like?

I’ve tried to help friends get their own domain names so they aren’t at the whim of their ISP and location in terms of how and where to get email. Next step, how to get more internet infrastructure into their own hands.