Can #Mastodon become a miniature example of a free market system?

All the pieces are in place. Individually owned businesses & services. Not government regulated. Healthy competition. Sales determined by supply & demand.

No middlemen. No choke point capitalism. No corporate acquisitions. A strong shield against all the corporate practices that have ruined the economy.

I'm excited to see where this goes, and how much it will grow. We desperately need something like this.

@the_Effekt I want this, no.. I *need* this so badly.

@LibertyForward1 Me too.... badly!

The right kind of people have the power to build their own society. I'm seeing the beginnings of it here.

I'd love to see this grow to a point at which all major corporations start to flounder, stripped of all demand.

Build it here and starve them out!

@the_Effekt Agreed, though if I may make one small point of clarification: this might be more applicable to the #Fediverse as a whole rather than #Mastodon specifically. I realize that might sound pedantic but the possibilities of the #ActivityPub protocol (which I'm not entirely clear what the difference in the two terms) are mind-boggling far beyond Mastodon itself.

@LibertyForward1 You're absolutely right. I was mistaken by using Mastodon as the example rather than the Fediverse.

@the_Effekt No worries. Like I said, I'm still not entirely certain what the difference is between the terms Activitypub and Fediverse so I don't honestly know what to call it.. lol

@the_Effekt But I love that someone else feels the energy and possibility that exists here.

@LibertyForward1 @the_Effekt

cc @Zee

@smallcircles @LibertyForward1 @the_Effekt I am working towards regional/topical cooperative economic development networks operating on top of a permissibly licensed federated application multi-user/multi-computer operating system.

Starting with the Shopify/ToastTab alt as the first major “app”

@Zee @smallcircles @LibertyForward1 Can you dumb it down for me please? 😅

@the_Effekt @smallcircles @LibertyForward1 what if instead of Main Street companies shipping 8%+ of their gross income to corporations like VISA/Stripe/GrubHub/Yelp/Facebook/Amazon/etc we designed software that allowed regional networks to share digital infrastructure in a way that kept money inside the community instead of shipping it to NYC or SF?

@Zee @smallcircles @LibertyForward1 I think it could work. For the sake of discussion, let's scrap money altogether for this idea.

We'd first need to set up a community finance infrastructure, maybe like a point system. Anyone who works on anything... all their time, whether building this system or in their own marketplaces gather points... no differential of importance. Time invested means points gained.

Those points would be value which could be transferred to others for purchasing.

@the_Effekt @smallcircles @LibertyForward1 There's a number of existing structures for this, for example:

1. Inter-organizational time banking!
2. Local "Gift-cards" systems
3. Local currencies!

etc.

However, there isn't a shared runtime for providing those offerings; and most of the innovation in the space has been tied up in griftocurrencies; which are technically and socioeconomically unsound.

@Zee@social.coop @the_Effekt@universeodon.com @smallcircles@social.coop @LibertyForward1@misfittoys.social

why markets though? shouldn't those be reserved for interfacing with other market-based systems?

@xjix @smallcircles @the_Effekt @LibertyForward1 what?

@Zee@social.coop @smallcircles@social.coop @the_Effekt@universeodon.com @LibertyForward1@misfittoys.social

ok i'm prepared to respond now. basically, why create markets when you could destroy them?

@xjix @smallcircles @the_Effekt @LibertyForward1 Because people still need to eat.

@Zee@social.coop @smallcircles@social.coop @the_Effekt@universeodon.com @LibertyForward1@misfittoys.social

isn't the problem that people have to pay to eat though?

@xjix @smallcircles @the_Effekt @LibertyForward1 I think we're probably coming from too far apart to have a productive conversation on the matter.

I work with people who are laborers; who work hard and have families and homes.

My job is to make sure they keep their homes warm and their families fed; that means interfacing with systems I would rather did not exist; including the slanted market created by imperial capitalism.

@xjix @smallcircles @the_Effekt @LibertyForward1

I can't afford to spend my time pretending that those economic realities don't exist right now; despite my preference for a larger shift towards a gift-economy.

Instead, I work to shift away from power-over ways of being and relating in the economic contexts around me; and use that to reduce the impact of market-based absurdity on the lives of my co-travelers.

@Zee@social.coop @smallcircles@social.coop @the_Effekt@universeodon.com @LibertyForward1@misfittoys.social

of course you can't, you're invested in the system-as-it-stands as a tool for softening the impact of the system on its victims. having essentially nothing and few prospects, i am more free to accept that radical action is needed. maybe it is futile to hope for liberation and this is the best we can hope for..