These sources imagine other ways computers and networks could work. Several concern small, local or open social software. This page lists 22 sources, oldest first where dated.
How to run a small social network site for your friends
The guide draws on the author's experience running Friend Camp for about 50 people. It argues the work is social first and technical second. The evidence is the author's own site and a few larger servers that shut down. The author says the size figures lack studies behind them.
Building community out of strangers
The post is one blogger's case for the blogroll. It is part of a series on connection in the indie web. It rests on the author's own habits and on quotes from other bloggers. It has no data. The page also carries 52 replies and links from other sites.
Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps
The essay is a vision statement from a research lab. It surveys older work on end-user customization and names three design patterns. It then describes the lab's prototypes, which it says it used in its own work. It reports no user studies.
Code⇄GUI bidirectional editing via LSP
The post describes a proof of concept built in hours. Its evidence is a short demo and the author's own survey of code-based CAD tools. The author does not plan to develop the demo further.
you are in a box
This is part 1 of a series called the computer of the next 200 years. It surveys ways tools interoperate: compatibility, standards, FFI, shell pipes and RPC. The evidence is one shell pipeline and named tools, not measurements.
Cyborgs vs rooms, two visions for the future of computing
The post is a brief sketch, not a study. It lists examples of each vision and says which one the author prefers. It offers no data, only named projects and a stated preference.
the terminal of the future
This is part 6 of a series called the computer of the next 200 years. The post is a design proposal with a staged build plan. It cites Warp, iTerm2, Pluto.jl and tmux as partial precedents. It builds no prototype.
Atmospheric Computing
The post names an idea, atmospheric computing, and ties it to the AT Protocol. It gives a few working apps as examples. It also has a short technical section that the author says non-engineers can skip.
How close are we to a vision for 2010?
The thread discusses a blog post at shkspr.mobi that grades an old vision of 2010. Commenters mix praise with tangents on agents, privacy, immigration and phones. Evidence is anecdote and outside links, and the thread has 71 points.
Why I'm betting on ATProto (and why you should, too)
A personal essay written after a conference. It blames ad-funded social media for division and loneliness. It presents ATProto as a way to own your data and build human-centered apps. The evidence is the author's own experience.
I'm building a parallel internet, and it's called The Thinnernet
A speculative essay by a blogger who writes with a Steve Jobs alter-ego. It proposes a low-data tier of the internet so all users get a consistent experience. The evidence is analogy and argument, with no prototype.
SwiftUI After 7 Years: A Story of Mediocrity: Will it ever stop feeling like a beta?
A video essay by an Apple-platform developer, published with a full transcript. It argues SwiftUI has not become a production-grade framework. The evidence is personal experience, Apple's own tutorial project and one informal performance comparison.
Modern email can be built from borrowed parts
A blog post sketching a successor to email, named HMTP, assembled from existing web standards. It walks through discovery, identity, delivery, encryption and spam. It links a single-file Python prototype.
Stop Making TUIs
The post tours native Mac apps that the author had an AI agent write. It then argues against TUIs and answers likely objections. The evidence is the author's own use of the apps, not tests. The author says the apps are for personal use.
Reintroducing Spaces
A design essay by a designer of atproto Spaces. It states four design goals and compares spaces with the circles model. The evidence is argument and one example app, not tests.
“We want it to really confuse people, but also really make people happy.”
The essay answers a John Gruber link to ArtfulType, a Markdown editor for old Macs. It offers three more projects as examples of deliberate time mixing. The evidence is the author's taste, plus quotes from a long read and an article.
We have whittled down all the nominations to our shortlist for the 2026 Tiny Awards!
A very short social post. It announces 11 shortlisted websites and links the voting page. The post does not name the entries.
A Love Letter to the Super Dimension Fortress
A personal essay by a new member of SDF. It covers the system's history, its services and how to join. It ends with two hands-on sections, a Perl guestbook and notes on Dillo-friendly sites.
What Even Is An OS Now?
The author says they are leaving Fly.io for a new project and talking their book. The post is prediction and personal story. It offers no tests or data, and announces that the project is a phone.
TownSquare, a tiny presence layer for websites
The page is a short landing page with a live demo. It describes one script tag that adds a shared space to a site. The page is short and gives no technical detail.
bitchat
A brief landing page in plain text with ASCII art. It states what bitchat is and links the iOS, macOS and Android source code. The page makes claims only and shows no tests.
Whyrusleeping, Protocol Labs Better Directions for Using Information
The video is a talk by Whyrusleeping of Protocol Labs. Its description says it was recorded at a Foresight workshop in San Francisco. The video was not viewed and no transcript was available, so its content is unknown.
Glossary
- ABI
- The low-level rules for how compiled programs call each other.
- ACL
- Access control list: a list saying who may see or change something.
- Agent
- An AI model that can run tools and write code on its own.
- Anachronism
- Something placed in the wrong time period on purpose or by mistake.
- ARPA membership
- SDF's paid lifetime tier with extra tools and voting rights.
- AT Protocol
- An open standard for social apps where users keep their own accounts and data.
- Atmosphere
- The name for the network of apps built on ATProto.
- ATProto
- An open protocol for social apps where users keep their data.
- Automerge
- A library, made by the lab, that syncs shared documents between users.
- BBS
- A computer that people dialed into by modem to chat and share files.
- Blogroll
- A list of other blogs that a site's owner recommends or follows.
- Bluetooth mesh
- A network where nearby devices pass messages along to one another over Bluetooth.
- CAD
- Computer-aided design software for modelling parts and buildings.
- Catalyst
- Apple's tool for running iPad apps on the Mac.
- CGI
- An old method for running a script each time a web page is requested.
- CLI
- Command-line interface, where you type commands and read text output.
- Code of conduct
- A written set of rules for acceptable behavior on a site.
- Compound document
- A document built from parts that are edited by different programs.
- Curses
- An old library for drawing text interfaces in a terminal.
- Cyborg
- A person extended by wearable or implanted devices.
- Decentralized protocol
- A shared standard where no single company controls all the data.
- Declarative UI
- Describing the interface you want and letting the framework work out the steps.
- Dennard scaling
- The trend of chips getting faster and cooler as transistors shrank.
- Dillo
- A very small web browser with no JavaScript support.
- DKIM
- A signature scheme email servers use to check who sent a message.
- Dynamicland
- A project to make a room-sized computer people use together.
- Emulator
- Software that imitates another computer so old programs can run.
- Eventual consistency
- A design where copies of data may differ briefly and then agree.
- Fantasy console
- An imagined game machine that exists only as software.
- Federation
- Separate servers exchanging posts so users on different sites can follow each other.
- FFI
- Foreign function interface, a way for code in one language to call another.
- Fixed-function application
- A program built by others to do one set of defined tasks.
- Foresight Institute
- A nonprofit that supports technologies for the long-term future.
- Fork
- A modified copy of open source software kept as its own project.
- Frontier model
- One of the most capable AI models available.
- GeometryReader
- A SwiftUI view that reports its size so code can place things by hand.
- Gopher and Gemini
- Two lightweight text-focused internet protocols older or simpler than the modern web.
- Hometown
- A Mastodon fork by the author that adds local-only posting.
- Hop
- One relay step when a message passes through an intermediate device.
- HPKE
- A standard way to encrypt a message to someone using their public key.
- HyperCard
- A 1980s Mac program for building stacks of linked cards.
- IETF
- The standards body that publishes many internet protocols.
- Immigration
- The border check for people entering a country.
- IndieWeb
- A movement for people to publish on sites they own and link them together.
- IPC
- Inter-process communication, ways for separate programs to exchange data.
- JMAP
- A standard for reading and syncing mailboxes over JSON and HTTP.
- Jupyter
- A notebook tool where code runs in cells and output appears beneath each cell.
- Latency
- The delay between a request and its response.
- Local-first software
- Software that keeps data on the user's device and still lets people collaborate.
- LSP
- Language Server Protocol, a standard way for editors to get code features from a server.
- Malleable software
- Software that users can change easily to fit their own needs.
- Markdown editor
- A writing app that uses plain-text marks for headings and emphasis.
- Mastodon
- Free software for running a Twitter-like social network on your own server.
- MeshCore
- A radio mesh network for sending text messages without cellular service.
- Modality
- The kind of content an app deals with, such as video or recipes.
- Modding
- Changing software without the original developer's permission.
- MQTT
- A lightweight messaging protocol with small headers.
- MX record
- A DNS entry saying which server receives mail for a domain.
- OAuth consent screen
- The screen that asks what an app may do with an account.
- OpenSCAD
- A free CAD program in which models are written as code.
- Operating system
- The core software that manages hardware and keeps apps separate.
- Orthogonal persistence
- Keeping program state saved automatically, apart from the program's own logic.
- P-Comm
- The personal communicator device imagined in the 2010 vision.
- Parasocial
- A one-sided bond with someone who does not know the reader.
- PDS
- Personal Data Server: the server that stores a user's account and data.
- Peer-to-peer
- A design where devices talk directly rather than through a central server.
- Personal data store
- A server that holds one user's records and signs them.
- Plugin
- An add-on that extends an app in ways its developer allows.
- Presence layer
- A feature that shows who else is on a page right now.
- Protocol Labs
- A company behind decentralized data and networking projects.
- Provenance
- Where a piece of software came from and who made it.
- PTY
- A pseudo-terminal, a kernel link between a terminal window and the programs in it.
- QoS
- Quality of service: rules that give some network traffic priority over other traffic.
- RPC
- Remote procedure call, a defined interface for one program to call another.
- RSS feed reader
- An app that collects new posts from many sites in one place.
- Script tag
- A line of HTML that loads a program into a web page.
- SDF
- A nonprofit public-access UNIX system and online community started in 1987.
- Shell integration
- Extra signals that tell a terminal where commands begin and end.
- Shortlist
- A reduced list of nominees from which a winner is chosen.
- Sigchain
- A chain of keys where each new key is signed by the previous one.
- SMTP
- The old protocol that servers use to send email to each other.
- Somaforming
- Changing ourselves to fit an environment, as opposed to terraforming.
- Space
- A group of records with one owner and one shared audience.
- SwiftUI
- Apple's framework for building app interfaces by declaring what they should look like.
- Switching cost
- The effort needed to move from one tool to another.
- Thinnernet
- The author's name for a low-data lane of the internet.
- Tiny Awards
- An awards scheme for websites, with a 2026 round and public voting.
- Tmux
- A tool that keeps terminal sessions running so you can detach and reattach.
- TUI
- Terminal user interface, a program with windows and menus drawn in text characters.
- Tweetcart
- A tiny PICO-8 game whose code fits in one tweet.
- Ubiquitous computing
- Computing embedded in everyday objects and surroundings.
- UIKit and AppKit
- Apple's older interface frameworks for iOS and macOS.
- WebFinger
- A standard for looking up information about an account from its address.
- Webmention
- A standard way for one site to tell another that it linked to it.
- WebSocket
- A web connection where server and page can send messages both ways.
- XMPP
- An open chat standard that many companies once used to link their services.