Commoning for Fun and Profit: Experimental Publishing on the Decentralized Web

Abstract

The World Wide Web is dominated by big tech and seemingly endless scandals after a decade of growing distrust about the role technology and the Internet play in our society. As a result, there are calls for the creation of alternatives to the existing platforms and infrastructures. One such alternative is a decentralized web (DWeb) where users have control of their data and decisions. This paper presents a collectively-produced organizational autoethnography of the development of an emerging tool for publishing on the decentralized web and the magazine using it to contribute to the digital commons. Three key themes emerged: 1) how a commons-based understanding of boundaries supports participation in a broader ecosystem; 2) the ways commoning as a frame deepens engagement as opposed to a passive model of a digital commons platform; finally 3) the need to re-assess how a cohort lab model that structured the work feeds back into larger goals. From these findings, we reflect on how this project fits into a maturing DWeb ecosystem and what possibilities for social transformation are present in transitional forms of commons. We discuss the pressing need for CSCW and adjacent research communities to participate in the design of, and debates over, the new computing paradigms developing out of this wave of decentralized technologies.