Toasternet

Toasternets were an early-1990s instantiation of the decentralized Internet, featuring open-standards-based federated services, radical decentralization, ad-hoc routing and consisting of many small individual and collective networks rather than a cartel of large commercial Internet Service Provider networks. Today's "community networks" and decentralized social networks are the closest modern inheritors of the ethos of the 1991-1994 era Toasternets.^[2]^[3]

^ Woodcock, Bill (December 1, 1994). "What is a Toasternet?". The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog. HarperSan Francisco. p. 240. ISBN 0-06-251059-2. Toasternets are private, independent Internet-connected networks that spring up in basements, closets, wherever there's space. They are built by individuals, often, using bizarre mixtures of mismatched hardware and software. Prototype high-speed routers and network hardware nestle comfortably among antiquated UNIX hosts built from ten-year-old discarded parts; alpha-test software runs on machines salvaged from junkyards and dumpsters. Macintoshes run ported PC software; PCs run one-of-a-kind operating systems. Many toasternets seem at first like hellish tangles of junk, unlikely to work at all. Fact is, the intensity of competition, the rate of propagation, and the great variety of methods and combinations have created a form of electronic Darwinism. Software, protocols, and routing algorithms are born, fan out over the net, and disappear, prey to faster, more reliable, more portable new generations. Toasternets are a hothouse for technological standards, and we all profit from the resulting hybrid vigor.
^ Wenz, John (2017-06-01). "The New Internet From 'Silicon Valley' Is Actually Possible". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 17 July 2021. By creating a decentralized network, you have no favored sites, and there's less emphasis on one platform over another. It'd be a bit like the ancient (in digital terms) idea of a toasternet, which strings together various computers to create network access among users, that attempts to circumvent internet service providers by becoming its own gateway.
^ Doctorow, Cory (2017-04-07). "Scuttlebutt: an "off-grid" P2P social network that runs without servers and can fall back to sneakernet". BoingBoing. Retrieved 17 July 2021. It reminds me a lot of Fidonet, Tom Jennings' classic BBS networking infrastructure that linked millions of people around the world by programming local dial-up BBSes to call one another during off-peak/low-tariff hours and swap messages destined for one another, or more distant nodes. Fidonet eventually got a bridge into Usenet (thanks to trailblazing San Francisco ISP The Little Garden) that supercharged it in much the way of Scuttlebutt's pubs.

[woodcock-1] Woodcock, Bill (December 1, 1994). "What is a Toasternet?". The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog. HarperSan Francisco. p. 240. ISBN 0-06-251059-2. Toasternets are private, independent Internet-connected networks that spring up in basements, closets, wherever there's space. They are built by individuals, often, using bizarre mixtures of mismatched hardware and software. Prototype high-speed routers and network hardware nestle comfortably among antiquated UNIX hosts built from ten-year-old discarded parts; alpha-test software runs on machines salvaged from junkyards and dumpsters. Macintoshes run ported PC software; PCs run one-of-a-kind operating systems. Many toasternets seem at first like hellish tangles of junk, unlikely to work at all. Fact is, the intensity of competition, the rate of propagation, and the great variety of methods and combinations have created a form of electronic Darwinism. Software, protocols, and routing algorithms are born, fan out over the net, and disappear, prey to faster, more reliable, more portable new generations. Toasternets are a hothouse for technological standards, and we all profit from the resulting hybrid vigor.

[2] Wenz, John (2017-06-01). "The New Internet From 'Silicon Valley' Is Actually Possible". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 17 July 2021. By creating a decentralized network, you have no favored sites, and there's less emphasis on one platform over another. It'd be a bit like the ancient (in digital terms) idea of a toasternet, which strings together various computers to create network access among users, that attempts to circumvent internet service providers by becoming its own gateway.

[3] Doctorow, Cory (2017-04-07). "Scuttlebutt: an "off-grid" P2P social network that runs without servers and can fall back to sneakernet". BoingBoing. Retrieved 17 July 2021. It reminds me a lot of Fidonet, Tom Jennings' classic BBS networking infrastructure that linked millions of people around the world by programming local dial-up BBSes to call one another during off-peak/low-tariff hours and swap messages destined for one another, or more distant nodes. Fidonet eventually got a bridge into Usenet (thanks to trailblazing San Francisco ISP The Little Garden) that supercharged it in much the way of Scuttlebutt's pubs.

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