I Still Think We Had it ( Almost ) Right: Community Networking, the Forgotten Gene of a New Better Internet

Abstract

Motivated by the Free-Nets, Santa Monica PEN, Berkeley Community Memory, and the Big Sky Telegraph system in Montana, the Seattle chapter of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) --- of which I was an active member --- launched the Seattle Community Network (SCN) in 1994 [11]. SCN provided training, computer donations, free web pages and free email ---a full decade before Gmail arrived on the scene. But we did not sell ads or surveil our users. And our volunteer pool of over 100 volunteers couldn't have imagined that they would be competing in the future against gigantic corporations with untold billions at their disposal.