I am caught between two viewpoints.

  1. 1.

    Politics catalyze growth by rewarding innovation that meets the demands of the majority

  2. 2.

    Surfaces should be intentionally designed such that Politics are difficult to emerge

The key difference between the co-operative and open-source protocol approaches to smoothing distribution of information influence within the music space is the relationship between platform and politics.

subvert.fm

employs a co-operative structure where members are divided into classes (1artist, label, supporter classes) who elect class representatives to form "The board": a checks and balances system leveraged against the executive tier (separate owning entity).

ATProtocol / ActivityPub or "fediverse"

issues cryptographic proof of identity such that each actor on the network has a portable instance-of-self which can interact freely as an atomic unit, or participate in meta-protocols(bluesky/mastadon) to emulate systems.

Comparing the two

  • Subvert.fm provides democratic containers where innovation will necessarily depend on political action in order to maintain homeostasis and innovate

  • ATProtocol / ActivityPub provides an anti-surface for factions. Collectivism, of course, is still key here, but internal culture and decision making processes of these collectives will be emergent rather than imposed.

These are appropriate to compare because, if you remove the vehicle which gets everyone together in the first place, both approaches solve for the same philosophical enhancements.

  • Ownership

  • Identity Sovereignty/Expression

  • Power returned to end user

What is the role of Politics?

By empowering a small group of decision makers, you force them to contend with other groups to innovate in the way that is most agreeable to the society that it serves. As a result, innovation is accelerated, but direction will vary.

Under democratic circumstances (subvert.fm), politics are built in. Using a representative structure, representatives are able to take advantage of the standard platform to advocate for change on day one. However, representatives must be voted in, and creators will likely campaign for the role of representative. When that happens, the criteria for the essential representative will depend on more than just decision making. It will be on opinionated exhibitions of policy, reputation, and assertion.

Under protocoled circumstances (fediverse), there is no such structure for politics. Everyone is given the same green space where information flows freely and anything can happen. However, while tech leaders can take personal initiative to build ecosystems for populations, they have to constantly campaign for adoption and typically do not experience success until some critical mass of people adopt the protocol that enables their feature. In this space, it is easier to build economic loops and renewable community, but requires a non-trivial amount of manual upkeep.

I will leave you to decide which approach is better. I am of the opinion that both can be effective when deployed at the right scale, but both rely on the users total awareness of the underlying structure for either to operate true to their design.