====== The Good Web ======

A term for the part of the internet built in good faith — broader than the [[indieweb:indieweb_defined|IndieWeb]], though it contains it.

===== Definition =====

<mark>The Good Web</mark> is any part of the internet built in good faith, in the specific contractual sense:

  * The maker is not optimizing **against** the user
  * No dark patterns
  * No retention schemes
  * No bloated scripts designed to keep you scrolling past the point of nourishment into compulsion
  * Nobody is selling your reading habits to an insurance company

The Good Web is not a technology, not a protocol, not even a community — though it contains all of those things. It's a **disposition toward the person on the other end of the connection.**

The difference between a neighbour who bakes you bread and a supermarket that puts the bread at the back because they know you'll buy chips on the way. Both offer something. Only one gives a shit whether you leave full.

===== What It Includes =====

  * Personal websites and blogs
  * Federated social media ([[https://joinmastodon.org/|Mastodon]], [[https://pixelfed.org/|PixelFed]])
  * [[indieweb:neighbourhood|Webrings]], blogrolls, directories
  * Forums like [[https://32bit.cafe/|32-Bit Café]], [[https://forum.melonland.net/|MelonLand]], [[https://tildes.net/|Tildes]]
  * [[protocols:start|Alternative protocols]] — Gemini, Gopher, twtxt

===== What It Is Not =====

The Good Web is not innocent or pure. Its failure mode is **human failure** — thoughtlessness, clique formation, accessibility gaps. Not structural failure. Nobody built the Good Web to extract from you.

===== Why Corporate Social Media Fails This Test =====

  * 48% of US teens say social media has a mostly negative effect on people their age (Pew 2024, up from 32% two years prior)
  * 58% of college students would prefer a world without Instagram; 57% without TikTok
  * 62% of UK young people aged 16–24 believe social media does more harm than good (More in Common)

People know something is wrong. The dissonance is not channelled into finding something better — by design. Learned helplessness. The belief that migration would take too much effort. But these beliefs are manufactured.

===== See Also =====
  * [[indieweb:start|IndieWeb Index]]

  * [[indieweb:harm_reduction|Harm Reduction — Practical Steps]]
  * [[indieweb:indieweb_defined|What Is the IndieWeb?]]
  * [[indieweb:onboarding_gap|The IndieWeb Onboarding Gap]]
  * [[indieweb:trust_online|Trust and Faith Online]]
  * [[folkzone:philosophy|Homelab Philosophy]]
  * [[start|Return to wiki home]]