Except, some people do love their ISPs. Across America more than 400 community-owned fiber networks, serving more than 700 communities, bring joy and satisfaction to their customers:
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.
Pluralistic: Digital sewer socialism (08 Aug 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Hardly a day goes by without my getting an email from someone looking for a way to do good with technology. From computer science students thinking about post-grad careers to seasoned coders with decades of experience, there's an army of hackers looking for a way to turn their expertise into public goods.
Pluralistic: Digital sewer socialism (08 Aug 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Hardly a day goes by without my getting an email from someone looking for a way to do good with technology. From computer science students thinking about post-grad careers to seasoned coders with decades of experience, there's an army of hackers looking for a way to turn their expertise into public goods.
Pluralistic: Post-American compute for a post-American Internet (04 Aug 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Obviously, the non-American world has a digital sovereignty problem – Trump has means, motive and opportunity to order his tech companies to shut down any public official, large corporation, or individual who displeases him:
Pluralistic: What’s a “public internet?” (25 Jun 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
The "Eurostack" is a (long overdue) project to publicly fund a European "stack" of technology that is independent from American Big Tech (as well as other powers' technology that has less hold in Europe, such as Chinese and Russian tech):
I'm Getting Into Mesh Networks... (Meshtastic, MeshCore, and Reticulum)
I love networking, a lot. So much so that I've run my own ISP since 2024, complete with its own ASN, IPv4/6 address space, fiber optics, etc. However, do this and you quickly realize how reliant you still remain on central service providers. The internet is a mesh, but
Pluralistic: The Post-American Internet (01 Jan 2026)
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.
Pluralistic: They’re just trying to earn a buck (07 Oct 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Life as a prisoner of the neoliberal mind palace must suck: it's a world where every person who suffers under predatory business practices is a "consumer" who has "revealed a preference" for being screwed:
Pluralistic: All (antitrust) politics are local (02 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
The US government has abandoned antitrust. Today, companies facing antitrust jeopardy can just pay key Trumpland figures a million bucks, and they will make a discreet visit to the fifth floor of the DoJ building, have a little shoofty around the Antitrust Division and the whole thing will just…go away:
Pluralistic: Trump’s CFPB kills data broker rule (15 May 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Something amazing happened from 2020-2024: even as parts of the Biden administration were encouraging genocide and covering up the president's senescence, a small collection of little-regarded agencies were taking a wrecking ball to corporate power, approaching antitrust and consumer protection with a vigor not seen in generations.
Should we design for iffy internet?
Around 97% of US households have internet access, but bandwidth and latency are likely worse than you expect.
Meet the People Building Their Own Internet in Detroit
Come for the Network, Pay for the Tool
Paid groups, bespoke social networks, and the meaning of community for internet-native businesses.
Pluralistic: Google’s AI pricing plan (21 Jan 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Google is spending a lot on AI, but what's not clear is how Google will make a lot from AI. Or, you know, even break even. Given, you know, that businesses are seeing zero return from AI:
ATmosphere Conf 2026: the internet built for people, not platforms
370 people in Vancouver, 500 online, all working on the same question: what does the internet look like when users own their data? Highlights from the AT Protocol community conference.
I feel like the logical endpoint is ISPs giving you an atproto identity when you sign up, if you don’t already have one. Would that make things easier? Would we be okay with that, assuming nothing breaks and you can change your PDS afterward?
Ariel M. (she/her)
Changing your phone provider = changing your atmosphere provider → keep your phone number = keep your identity (username) Changing your phone = changing what app you use* → keep your contacts & photos = keep your followers, following, posts, etc. You can change providers without changing phones.
