On shared private internets — NCE.DFOS weekly

Hello friends —

Lovely to be speaking with you, as always from the bowels of DFOS HQ, nestled in an unassuming grove of trees in the foothills of an impassable mountain range, its peaks protected by a wall of frigid temperatures, gale-force winds, and creatures so legendary they spike fear even in people who believe they must be fantasy.

It is from here, in this place-away-from-the-place, that the small band of marauders building DFOS together make and enact our plans. By virtue of being in this communication channel with us, we are privvying you to the inner circle, bound together by the oath of the forest.

Shared private internets

First, an important word on where we are going.

When we think about this work we're doing together, the phrase "shared private internets" feels most specific and descriptive of what we're doing. We're building a new kind of online world that people can share together, where functions and capabilities are not limited by us the platform. What we provide instead is the infrastructure and a framework for creative communities to build worlds of their own.

When we really zoom out on this, we see DFOS as a key part of a future creative ecosystem where creative and cultural projects and scenes work more openly in shared private universes. Sharing so willingly in clearnet channels will be universally regarded as foolish and dangerous. Yet taking advantage of the infrastructure of the internet, of networks, and the connectivity of the world today will be increasingly important.

By virtue of our infrastructure, product, and communities, DFOS can play a crucial part in this world. A private network of private networks. An interconnected creative universe not unlike the indie and underground scenes of old. Places where people actively choose to be. Places where new ways of being, expressing, and seeing are explored, tested, and turned into new norms.

When we think of all we learned building Metalabel and what inspired us to take on a project as ambitious of DFOS, this is the vision that draws us forward.

Emerging this cycle: Hacienda 1.1

Zooming in from that vision to the present, this week marks the culmination of Hacienda 1.1. Over the past week, Brandon and Ilya have fixed more than 50 bugs, shipping numerous iterations and improvements on the product. This week marks another cycle complete, with a new round of money features (including the ability to withdraw funds) going live. More subtle but important for dark forest spaces: this update restored the ability for Spacerunners to control posting permissions in specific blogs and spaces. This can be set in the settings area of your blog. Click on three dots next to a topic to edit its permissions:

Emerging next cycle: Hacienda 1.2

Even as 1.1 ships, 1.2 is already in the works, with a focus specifically on video and audio. Look for more on that next week.

Forest Monthly

At the close of last week, we held the first of what will be an increasingly sacred gathering: Forest Monthly. For our first session, we invited multiple Spacerunners to show us their creations.

We got a tour of Richie's wildly imaginative world of Sol Invicto. We heard from Sam on using DFOS to coordinate hundreds of people in a massive co-creation project. Vinny from Clear.txt walked through his space. And I showed my personal space as well.

What we were most struck by, later on, were two things:

1. How creatively oriented all the spaces were. A band and record label. A creative community. A developer community. A writer. The others on the call also came from creative backgrounds.
2. How much this already feels real. When people showed their spaces, they talked about them as theirs, with obvious pride of ownership. We could see that already, even in these early days, DFOS is coming alive.

A-Corp updates

Two small but significant A-Corp updates:

• The law passed last week in Colorado! This is a great Art Newspaper piece on it.
• We wrote up a piece about how "Obsession," the hugely popular horror film, would be impacted by being an A-Corp.

See you in the forest,
DFOS