I was running the other day, and I was thinking how can this AI thing be used to something good instead of ending up in violence. Needed to get it out of my chest, sorry if this is too much (down vote is ok :). The big problem I find with AI is really rent-seeking behavior and big tech in my mind. I also think something like what I propose could solve the issue that AI is standing on the shoulders of free OSS, and that feels unfair to many (me). Without this, after AI claims the easy-pickings of the "personalized-cake-as-a-service" companies (and the like), we would be left with the actual interesting problems that, by definition AI won't be able to do (at least until AGI). And make sure as many minds can work on it as possible.

Imagine a world with true competition / free market, where all users own their own data and where promotion of apps / hosting is free. Like urbit, but no weird "OS" and much less... ehm... moldbuggy. You build mechanisms in such a way where rent-seeking is basically impossible due to market dynamics and backed by gov instead of big tech. AI is the driving force that gets us there: since it would be / is (already?) easy to replicate mail, maps, etc. We just need to loosen those network effects.

So more concretly I am thinking that data is hosted on "app stores". In democraties, we might have an app store driven by gov, one per each country. Countries might arrange themselves differently. Google / Apple for example could own the US ones (so no changes there), in China something else. There are standard / bi-lateral agreements between different entities to make sure people in non-democratic countries get less screwed. You can chose which app store you want (free internet required), and you can always move data from one to another (again: based on agreements between the different app stores). This is managed on the app store level.

The app store pays salaries to people ("devs") who produce the different apps. Salaries could be based on a certain amount of usage, but max out on a high, but not insane wage (top 10% earner in country?). The devs may organize in companies, but there's a cap how much an company / a dev can make and be valued at. I was thinking 5 people per company at the max. The rest goes to app store to pay other devs and hosting. Basically the way it works today, but the app stores would again be gov owned and not-for-profit. There could be different types of way devs might organize around: app (UX), services (APIs) and "vertical integrators". The "vertical integrators" take multiple apps and services and bundle them together to a more consistent "package" (think Gmail / Google Drive / Proton whatever). They could be responsible for making sure to drive prices down on the individual pieces of the package. There would have to be some counter-corruption mechanisms (transparency) to make sure that is fair. Some markets might be interested in national ad platforms (for national security for example).

If devs want to create something for the benefit of everyone for free they can do that. You can even build closed source things for the benefit of all, since hosting is free. Permissions on data is managed on app store level so you do not need the same level of insight - I think this is already partially handled in Apple eco system.

Anyways, the goal here is to avoid rent-seeking behavoir, network effects, ads going haywire and make sure the devs that do the work can both give back and get something back (a decent, but not insane wage). I think there's lots of fun mechanismes that could be designed to make sure people that actually contribute to software development get a decent wage, while disheartning those who do not. First post here, and, yes, I know I am a dreamer.

I've been thinking along similar lines as you and really appreciate you posting this comment.

I, too, think it's important to put dreams out there even if they have holes in their implementation or are easily torn apart by naysayers. We can and should collectively dream of a better future if we want something worthwhile to aim at.