- an [[open letter]]. - [[public]]. - Of which you can read a [[draft]] in this [[node]] in the [[Agora of Flancia]]. - About democracy, freedom, fairness and [[protopianism]] in the [[Commons]] :) - Written during [[May 2025]] in the context of [[node club]] on [[digital capitalism]] -- and the [[20th anniversary of the founder's letter]] - an [[open letter]]. - [[internal]]. - This other version is [[corp only]] as I work for [[Google]] and I believe it is most ethical to work within the circle of trust that the corporation pays me to uphold when going into a certain level of detail. - If you work at Google and you would like to read this letter as well, please [[reach out]] over corp! # Introduction I bet you don't run into letters with introductions every day :) This open letter was written in early [[May 2024]] with the occasion of the **20th anniversary of the [[April 29th]] publication of [[Google]]'s [[founders letter]] ahead of its [[2004-08-19]] [[IPO]].** I write this with the pro-social intent of inviting Google the corporation, its employees and the internet at large to a **constructive retrospective** of the years since Google started engaging with the [[greater internet community]] as a [[public company]]. This letter is written with good intentions, with [[loving kindness]] towards all beings and groups (including the community that makes up Google and our users) following the [[principle of charity]], as an individual with a public internet presence who happens to be an employee of [[Google]] as of the time of writing. This letter contains, or links to, a series of [[proposals]] for changes in the company and in the nature of its engagement with [[people]] (alternatively "employees" or "users"). These are essentially a series of related well-meaning recommendations and declarations of intent to improve the world according to my views, and as such they are subject to error and other kinds of imperfections. As such, clearly all errors are my own; I remain committed to improving through your [[feedback]] 🙏 and personal reflection 🧡. And now, without further ado... :) -- ***Note: as of the time of writing ([[2024-05-03]], [[2024-05-07]], [[2024-05-09]], [[2024-05-12]]...), this letter should be considered most definitely a [[work in progress]]. I started writing in this node on [[April 29th]] with the intent to have a short essay in readable state at some point in [[May 2024]], making it one of my monthly priorities and taking the opportunity to also flesh out the internal proposal. Note I have covered many of these topics before, as fragments, elsewhere in the [[Agora]]; please reach out if you have any questions or comments :).*** # Why I'm writing this letter I am writing this letter because nobody else seems to be doing it, and I thought it should be written. As I said earlier I write this with the occasion of the [[founders letter anniversary]], a date to me more significant for my relationship with the company than probably any other. In this occasion I was hoping for both the company and the wider internet to take the opportunity to have an open conversation about the general state of affairs as [[Google]] enters its third decade as a [[public company]] while still holding a mostly deserved reign as internet search engine and provider of [[knowledge tools]]. Instead so far I have seen the date go by mostly unnoticed. People (some out, some in the company) seem jaded by the context and recent actions. It is as if Google has lost our trust and can now be expected to [[do no better]] than other corporations; to act just as traditional corporations do, despite our [[Founders Letter]] being our public declaration of intents of guarding against this outcome. But the Founders Letter was the base on which users, and stockholders, decided to trust Google early on -- that and the company’s user-friendly, standards-setting generous actions as they seemed to come more naturally [[back in the 00s]]. And because I believe this letter should be written, and barring someone better I should be the one to write it. # My intentions This letter is meant to contain, in as succinct a way as I could muster, a series of specific proposals to [[Google]] and the community of our [[users]], as a whole and as arbitrary subgroups. Whenever I couldn't expound in full, I would try to include [[links]]. I am writing down this set of optimistic, some would say [[naive]], **proposals** knowingly in the context of what some call [[late stage capitalism]] and can safely be described as [[digital capitalism]] as it is as of mid [[2024]]. I will clarify that I know that my chances of **success, defined as effecting meaningful change in the policies of the company**, are low. Yet I still want to try and communicate my recommendations as clearly and as ethically as I can manage to both company and society and try to engage in constructive dialogue with these parties. Because of ethical considerations, this letter has two facets: its most explicit other facet is currently available only to Googlers. My high level proposal, if there is one that can serve as an umbrella to all others, is the following: we should develop together a digital [[Commons]] containing a prosocial, transparent, free governance layer that complements the power and wilderness of the internet and allows us to use it in a daring way to try to advance all of: company, society and civilization. # On reflecting together as a skill I sincerely hope both company and wider society can recognize the opportunity to reflect together on the occasion. It seems, to me anyway, very apropos to stop for a moment and consider together how company, internet and market evolved and became [[entangled]] together in the last 20 years as we all (Google, Googlers, users and public society including other tech companies) aged -- and learnt, and grew -- and our roles shifted in the wider socioeconomic context. And what we can try to do about it. While I am employed (which I hope could mean through many more years to come, in open collaboration) I intend to try to convince Google that this is the right thing for both people ("users") and the company; and I intend to convince you, reader, that we should try to do this together. That's what we are setting out to do, anyway. Wish us luck! :) -> Next, maybe: [[An Agora is what Google could be]].