Libraries should evolve to play a larger role in the internet, theyve been trying to reinvent themselves and i think this best aligns with their spiritual purpose. Some ideas:
Caretakers of digital archives.
Caretakers of relevant open source projects.
Could I get a free domain with my library card?
Could I get free api access to mapping or other localized data?
Should libraries host local fediverse instances for civic users? (think police, firefighter alert, other community related feeds)
I like this - as a fan of democracy.
Democracy costs, I think it's OK that it takes a bit of time, more representatives, more votes is OK.
More civic engagement is a positive. Hearing the viewpoints of your neighbour is positive.
A really interesting dynamic, is that you would be creating a strong pipeline of leaders/representatives developing bottom up.
A lot of things of value are very hard to measure.
X degree influences can be very hard to measure.
You may hit your target metric, but secondary effects may be making the whole system worse.
Ideally you could A/B a parallel universe to isolate your specifc change, but that is challenging.
Alternatively, if there was no Google or Google like company, we would likely be much further along in tech, and have better functioning democracies. They have limited innovation in maps and search products. They rely on being big to be competitive. Their products are pretty poor given their engineering team size. Digital advertising: they bought their way into a quasi monopoly, siphoning dollars from people that actually create things.
The library is appealing to me because:
Precedence: pre internet I could connect to the library over a landlines and access the library and community news.
Expertise: not necessarily deep tech expertise, but with information retrieval, curation, education.
Community access: libraries are a municipal service with brick and mortar locations, and are heavily involved with community/public engagement.
For clarity, on the fediverse instance aspect. I was thinking more read only, with users being more official organizations with a barrier of entry vs. The general public. I personally wouldn't want libraries to be moderating public discourse - this should be arms reach. And wouldn't want them worrying about liability.
Public information (like safety bulletins for example) shouldn't exclusively be sitting on a for profit ad platform, it's bizarre.