While reading a chapter about media in the book "How to Survive the modern world", and in particular a chapter on the role of newspapers, I couldn't avoid but think of the similar role that technology plays in our lives.

As newspapers developed, they took the role that centuries before letters. Letters served as a tool between royal courts and the distant parts of their kingdom to send information to be acted upon (e.g., grain shortage). Newspapers took this role and expanded it to the general public. When reaching someone's doorstep in the morning, much of this information was liable to feel urgent and alarming. This led to a paradoxical state of mind in modern democratic states: one is at once extremely well-informed, deeply exercised–and completely powerless.

The sense of urgency and alarm that newspapers brought to the general public and the need to feel informed and up-to-date with the latest news became the perfect channel between governments and the public to share their views and influence public opinion. The public expected them to be impartial and objective–an accountability tool for the government. However, as history has proven in many countries, like Spain, they can be easily manipulated, leading to societies losing trust in both the media and the government. But what's the solution?

We see similar patterns when we look at the tech industry, which is the result of technology embedded in capitalism. Through stories, we've been told about aspirations where technology will save us from our problems or make our lives easier. It became the modern newspaper that also made us well-connected and informed, yet with the same powerlessness. We were convinced that every problem should be solved with technology and were forced to trust the people behind it to make the right decisions. We put our privacy aside (except for the Germans), and we gave them our data to make our lives easier. We put all our photos and documents in unlimited cloud storage. We traded our free time in our pursuit of feeding the algorithms with reactions or content. Being a content creator was the new cool thing.

And we ended up in the same situation as with newspapers. Sooner or later, they can't hide the power structures and the real interests behind them. The interest of a few people who want to become wealthier and more powerful at any cost, whether they are politicians or techno optimists (e/acc). They can go as far as postponing sustainability plans, laying off workers to increase market value, using slave labor to fine-tune their AI models, building the largest pyramid scheme in history, or laying out an echo chamber that leads to civil wars.

I don't know about you, but I have low trust in many technology organizations and leaders, such as newspapers and politicians. The loss of trust grew as I gained perspective on the industry after Shopify's move after some of my colleagues started to form a union. When I looked around, I noticed the number of proprietary technologies, hyper-growth companies, the lack of transparency in the industry, and the ongoing re-shaping of the story to keep us engaged, from the metaverse to the AI through the blockchain. Connected to the Internet, but more exhausted than ever. Something is terribly wrong. I want a technology that's closer to how Aaron Swartz envisioned it. We need to stop this.

We might feel powerless in front of these giants. But I strongly believe there's one tool that can help steer the ship in the right direction: openness. When a government or a business is open about its decisions and actions and builds solutions that are also open in nature, we can build trust through transparency and not through the words of a PR department or a newspaper. We'd still rely on them telling the truth, but we'd tear down the walls to make them accountable for their actions. We wouldn't rely on institutions realizing that damage is serious and worth reporting. If Meta had shaped their systems in the open, a public debate would have surfaced that what they were doing would have caused a lot of harm. They could have connected us without making us more individualist, polarized, and addicted. Who knows, maybe Twitter wouldn't be the shitshow it is today, where a clown does whatever he wants.

Moreover, openness has the power to attract communities of people to build wonderful technology. Look at Linux, Wodpress, Wikipedia, Ghost, Plausible, Codeberg. Suddenly Microsoft, and many others are interested in open-source, yet do little to support the most critical pieces of today's infrastructure. There's something beautiful in the idea of a community of people building something together, where everyone can contribute and benefit from it. That's why Marek and I don't believe Tuist is a traditional company. We want it to be an open and calm company with a community of people who share the same values and want to build something great together.

I made openness and the usage of standards requirements when choosing the tools I use these days. I still have a long way to go, but I'm happy with the progress I've made. I can right away recognize which tools I'd rather stay away from. For example, you won't see me something like Notion. Or I'm migrating from Figma to Penpot.

I gave governments and technologies my trust, and they failed me. It's my turn to take it back and put it in the hands of the people who deserve it. I believe healthier, long-lasting, and human technology is possible if we embrace openness, both as a consumer and as a producer. And I'm going to do my best to make it happen.