Reflecting on our current digital landscape, I am reminded of an unsettling parallel from history. Our interaction with the internet as it stands today is reminiscent of the post-Civil War sharecropping system in the southern United States. Back then, newly freed slaves were leased plots of land by their former masters, and in return, a share of the crops they produced would go back to the landowners.
This was seen as an opportunity for the former slaves to work and earn, but the reality was different. They were bound in a cycle of debt and exploitation, constantly toiling but never truly benefiting from their labor. They didn't own the land they worked on, and the fruits of their efforts largely served to enrich their former masters.
Fast forward to the present, and we see a similar pattern in our digital existence. We're given plots in the vast landscape of the internet – a corner on Twitter, a slice on Facebook, a patch on LinkedIn. But, much like the sharecroppers, we don't own these spaces. We invest our time and energy, yet the harvest of our digital labor primarily benefits the platform owners.
This constant cycle of investment and minimal return is particularly evident when you're trying to sell a product online. We put in all this energy using these "free" tools, hoping to see our product thrive. But the return on energy is often disappointingly low, and it feels like we're constantly begging for more favorable conditions from our digital landlords.
Yes, we hear of success stories where businesses boom overnight, going viral on these platforms. But those are exceptions, not the rule. For most of us, it feels like we're caught in a seemingly endless cycle of digital sharecropping.
But there's hope. Just as history has shown us this pattern of exploitation, it also provides us with the blueprint to break free. We need to reimagine the internet – a place where we're not just leasing plots, but where we actually own our digital land and the data we produce. A place that resembles an agroforest of our data, not a plantation. We can then share the fruits of our labor in a vibrant, biodiverse digital ecosystem of knowledge, insights, and exchanges.
Projects like ThreeFold give me hope. They are striving to multiply the return on energy from our internet usage. These initiatives are looking to move us away from an internet that makes a few people incredibly rich while giving the rest of us the illusion of success. ThreeFold in particular is empowering internet users with “Digital Twins” that turn them into superheroes (see: 
We need an internet that serves all its users, an internet where everyone reaps the benefits of their digital labor. Technology should amplify our efforts, not exploit them. We're contributing knowledge, insights, and more to these platforms. It's only fair that we receive a substantial return on that investment.
Let's break free from these digital plantations and build an internet that truly serves us all.