Some things are so big that we can only overcome them together.
I assume we all share the same dream:
A society where most personal data is stored locally, on your realm, under your full control, providing privacy while being useful to you and to society.
It should be obvious that this can only be achieved by a single, unified solution. A user produces only one set of data. If this is spread across different solutions, they will all fail because they will all miss their full potential.
If there is a central solution, it must at least maintain the database schema, as this is the key to being able to work with the personal data stored.
Even if we are able to replace the need to trust with a gain of control when it comes to the storage of personal data, opening up this data to society introduces the need for a new trust centre - one that ensures the compliance of data consumers and the integrity of the technical infrastructure.
And then there is the big problem of how to pervade society. We will only change the world if our new system becomes the new normal. We will need allies outside our privacy activist world - and we will need to stand united to convince them. We probably only have one chance to succeed.
As you can see, all of this requires us to work together to create the minimum infrastructure. We offer privact as a space to discuss this because we are technologically neutral and want to focus on the social hack. Of course, the social hack also makes some demands on the technology.
We grew out of the polypoly initiative, but we are not bound to the concepts or technologies developed there. We invite you all to share your experiences here. So many different problems of the whole concept have already been tackled and solved by the different initiatives. Let us use this knowledge. Together.
So we invite you and your initiative to join us here. We do not want to replace you. We just want to amplify the impact of all our initiatives.