plurality
✨
Encouraging a plurality of projects with a self-motivated incentive to interoperate is a key principle of the indie web, in contrast to monoculture efforts which require or even encourage everyone to install the same software, or use the same online service, in order to interoperate.
Project diversity over monoculture
With IndieWebCamp we've specifically chosen to encourage and embrace a diversity of approaches & implementations. This background makes the IndieWeb stronger and more resilient than any one (often monoculture) approach.
One of the key things we recognize with IndieWebCamp is that no one project is likely to be the answer.
Simultaneous exploration and evolution
We're much more likely to advance the state of the art by encouraging everyone to build what works for them, and then figure out how to interoperate between different coding/implementation approaches. This is what makes IndieWebCamp different (more inclusive) than all other such "open source" efforts out there.
Multiple implementation efforts help to simultaneously explore different parts of the indieweb problem space as we're all choosing to focus on building the particular aspects of what's important in an indie web site for ourselves. Additionally, multiple approaches to the same problems in essence A/B(/C/D/...) test different approaches simultaneously, each of which can then learn from and evolve in response to the others.
This parallel diversity both produces better indie web solutions faster, and allows for the incorporation of new approaches to address new problems, adapting as the needs of an indie web site change over time.
Quotes
- https://twitter.com/tmcw/status/1568966699436621825
- "if you think some technology choice can make you way more productive, then just do it and show people the productivity, don't go on prattling about what other people should or shouldn't do." @tmcw September 11, 2022
- https://chat.indieweb.org/dev/2023-09-21#t1695318770716700
- "we're all about encouraging the plurality of the wacky 😉" @[tantek] September 21, 2023
Opposites
Beware of the opposites: OSS monoculture, or messianic projects/efforts which are a can be a mix of savior complex + playing the victim (see: 2022-12-01 
fluffy: Warning signs with social media platforms: Messianic thinking (might be worth expanding into its own anti-pattern article like monoculture)
