Taking it all back:
The web was meant to be an open, boundary-less and democratic digital world. Born nearly 30 years ago, it enabled the early adopters among of which included other optimistic groups the ability to revel in their fascinations in the invisible layers of data being shared from others across the nation and over time, a world away. This inevitably unleashed unimagined creativity on the early internet where those who could, built their ideas from pure curiosity and expression of their creations. Through the mid and late 2000s, the internet became the main extension of information, connection and virtual expression. However, many netizens were blinded as large corporations, and other government entities rapidly placed many aspects of the internet under their control. They take, sell and use our data, engage in censorship and effectively created a more restrictive internet. Up until now, we can see the present uniformity and policing of expression.
Recently there has been a growing dialogue online of diversified users and other KOLs voicing these problems and creating awareness, however these efforts are nearly not enough to affect efficient change. Although there are plenty of projects out there that look to provide solutions and better alternatives, there is still a dire need for better coordination and proper support specifically through better funding mechanisms.
We believe that the vision of the Ethereum community has always been about #takebacktheweb, as it extends to rights that the prospect yield; creating technologies that enable the growth of a decentralised Internet, and brings back the imagination and creativity to the builders, without subjugation by the existing institutions.
The #takebacktheweb initiative aims to bring the necessary technologies together through a sustainable funding mechanism that incentivizes targeted development towards these goals. Furthermore, with the space filled with general grant DAOs to fund generic scope of projects, it is meaningful for ECF to take a birds-eye view of the priorities and underscore, with the help of the community, the most urgent and important initiatives, and call out the community to act collectively to support more efficiently.
For the go-getters, here is a gateway to get started with our first campaign on the initiative: #takebacktheweb hackathon from 9th of Jan to the 23rd of Jan 2019. (https://hackathons.gitcoin.co/take-back-the-web)
The Funding Mechanism:
#takebacktheweb with ECF
ECF’s upcoming platform, currently named: EveryoneCanFund, will lead projects and supporters with the integration of the Aragon DAO infrastructure (https://medium.com/aragondec) through its fundraising process to govern the projects. There will also be development of platform features such as project discovery and other fundraising feature sets alongside Aragon.
To stress the issues we found when talking with applicants and the grantees who were seeking funding, also those of the community who are seeking to be involved and participate in the promising projects, ECF will help EveryoneCanFund become a self-sustaining, permissionless, and trustless platform that is the connective tissue between decentralised applications in the community and non-technical users out of the community’s current scope.
It is difficult to cut through the white noise and celebrity bluff on social media to really get meaningful discussions from contributive members done and work among members from different communities in a collaborative form. Terms are often not defined before the verbal fight starts and goals and gauges are unclear when measuring the pros and cons of the solutions. It is also difficult to prognosticate the scale of the funding projects when it really goes to (if they can afford the distraction) action of talking to various grant programs and investors.
Not only will there be a direct-funding function being embedded in EveryoneCanFund, several collaboration features will be integrated to the platform to better connect the projects and the community as a whole. All these features will be discussed more on follow-up posts in addition to a roadmap to be published soon.
Dapps to build with the community:
Embark
Aligning with the spirit of #takebacktheweb, we welcome every missing piece in the decentralised galaxy to participate in taking back the web together with us! No matter what you’re trying to build to cut down the hands looting demotic powers, from decentralised service economy applications, forums, voting applications, to Dapp builders/cockpit, etc., anything that you’re seeking can be found on EveryoneCanFund.
Meanwhile, Embark (embark.status.im) as an open-source Dapp development framework has been proved to be one of the most experienced developer tools for ECF to encourage Dapp projects to use.
Furthermore, with Embark’s intent to become a startup factory, the Embark team will be able to deeply participate in the development of incubated Dapps providing their tech expertise and experience in development, and perhaps are the most aligned with the web3 vision given the important role Status Network has been playing in the accessibility of web3 in the ecosystem.
Take Back The Web Hack-a-thon:
Take-Back-The-Web Hack-a-thon partnering with Gitcoin and Embark is one of our first campaigns to call for more “authentic web” soldiers joining us!
