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Quite some years ago (2006-08), we brought the #OLPC AKA the 100$ laptop to Ethiopia as pilot. A surprising thing happened. The laptops were often without battery power in the morning. A thing that wasn’t anticipated. It had two reasons. One was the keyboard LED (it was removed in later series). It was used by the parents to have a light at home. The other was a bigger surprise. The parents used the mesh networking to discuss market prices for their produce. Fascinating. 1/8
With the mesh network built in to the OLPC, a local network that worked without needing a central access point (or the CPU), farmers used the chat function to compare prices offered for their produce and found out that merchants offered different prices. Draining the batteries while their kids were sleeping. This led to pressure on the merchants to pay better. The government was not amused. And mesh networking became a problem. Ultimately an inspiring story that was never told, IMHO. 2/8
Decentralisation remains an underexplored field in commerce and communication, IMHO. For obvious reasons. Capitalism relies on control and centralisation. Kind of a contradiction, IMHO. A reason why decentralisation and transparency are often touted as goals, but never really implemented. 3/8
@jwildeboer I think a lot about the fact that we all have pocket communicators with many different radios in them, but if disaster ever strikes, none of them can communicate with each other. The more I think about it, the more it feels like a sign of a world gone mad.
@simon Do have a look at Briar.
Though it’s a shame that such functionality isn’t *mandated* for every mobile sold.
@jwildeboer
