Thanks. Based on what we see I'm not optimistic about the resistance. But I am optimistic about our ingenuity to find ways of beating the system and creating alternatives. I think we will find ourselves gravitating to more and more decentralized forms of communication as the tentacles of the surveillance state spread.

The Indian Aadhar model, though horrific, is less worrying than the Chinese social credit model, because we might be approaching a reality where we cannot simply drop out and be non-persons, but will need to be active participants in systems that surveil us, in order to obtain work, find lodging, etc.

In the meantime, we need not only good hackers but good communicators and people to document what's available, because the technical requirements and knowledge needed for self hosting or maintaining systems like hubzilla or mastodon are still quite daunting - most of us therefore seek easy solutions like volunteer-run social networks, web and email co-ops, cheap hosting, etc.

The one time I tried to reach a dat site through Beaker browser the thing stalled and didn't go anywhere. Is that a common experience?