Alternatives to Capitalism🔦 Spotlight: iki.fi
Internet-käyttäjät ikuisesti (Internet Users Forever)
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#demos #free #nonprofit #federated #socialism #capitalism #anticapitalism #alternative #organization #email #socialmedia
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The Internet Users Forever (iki) is a non-profit society whose purpose is to promote the general conditions for communication on the internet, which provides its 29.000+ members, private individuals in Finland, permanent iki.fi-addresses with e-mail and WWW forwarding (IKI does not host the web pages or offer internet services, it just forwards the addresses).
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This allows members to keep the same personal identity should the actual location or ISP of their e-mail or www homepages change.
That's not even the best part- imagine a web service that doesn't spy on you, collect all your data, sell access to your eyeballs, or use all your thoughts, questions, and concerns to profile you while training it's AI.
Apparently it's possible!
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The service model of iki.fi combined with the legal environment of Finland creates a strong shield for protecting the users of iki.fi because sending spam to iki.fi addresses is actually illegal. According to the Finnish law, sending spam (unsolicited bulk email) to private individuals is illegal, and all @iki.fi addresses belong to private individuals.
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As a non-profit governed by an elected board of directors, iki.fi has a different service model than GMail (which sells access to it's users and users' data to ad and AI companies), Apple Mail (freemium), or Outlook (paid subscription). This way of doing things stands in stark contrast to the extractive, capitalistic way some companies operate.
iki.fi's model promotes common access to the shared resource that is the internet.
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The extractive, capitalist model does not. In fact, it seeks to hinder access in order to increase it's own profit at the expense of others. This is called "rent-seeking".
Read here how "Bogus patents stifle innovation and hinder positive use of new technology"
"A US patent filed in 1999 claims to have 'invented' functionality that IKI.FI (and many others) have been providing publicly for thousands of users since 1995."
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iki.fi is a Finnish service, and as such, if you are located in Finland and want to join iki.fi there is a fee of 40€, with no monthly or yearly fees on top. As a democratically run non-profit, users are invited to attend the yearly steering committee, and the meeting notes are posted online for all to keep informed:
https://ikiwiki.iki.fi/yhdistys/kutsu-2026
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