I loved every line of this article, thanks for posting.
I too plunged into this reality a few years ago, and started a VR AR project based on a similar idea, that people should be empowered to monetise their own data, but couldn’t get it circulated, as at it’s heart, the system has to be non-profit, thus had no budget for advertising, and positive publicity for it could not float at all in a profit driven environment, such as even Medium. I came to the conclusion that the profitability algorithms in these platforms suppress these kinds of stories by nature.
It is really cool to be reading similar thoughts now from someone else at last.
Since starting on that project, with model simulations, it became apparent that in addition to empowering folk to monetise their data, there is another factor needed to close the loop of a self-sustaining population; an external source of wealth which is not dependent on other people or organisations such as taxes is needed.
It now seems clear to me that that source is green energy, specifically solar, which is perpetual, and easily scaleable to meet the demands of our planet.
Poetically, it looks like Bitcoin might just be the magic key to that being implemented too.
I can see a non-profit, non-competive collaborative future where we might have two distinct sections of society, one that is big business, which functions as a kind of contractor for the other section, that is consumers, with disposable income to order materials for projects ordered by the people, and the disposable income comes from the free energy of the sun, all people choose whether to collaborate in projects, or just live off their own data and maybe artistic outputs, all interchangeably.
Time will tell, but I suspect this will happen very quickly when the benefits are weighed up.
I hope it happens in my lifetime, as I love building spacecraft, and like to believe I will get a chance to do a bit more before I am done.
Meantime all we can do is circulate these stories, and wait for their value to be recognised.
