I’ve been feeling restless for about a week now. The election news just added to the restlessness. The jitters are all related to my work, and to the work of those around me.

If I could wish for different things for us to build next year, what would I wish for? Let me count the ways.

1. Let us build something unmonetizable. Sooner or later, there’s an unskippable ad or paywall coming for every bit of our reality. Online spaces. Streets. Everything. If we’re starting from scratch next year, I’d want us to build more stuff that nobody makes money from.

2. Let us build something free and open. With software, these paths are well trodden by now. But I’m also thinking about more than bits. Events. Conferences. Physical spaces. Someone’s definition of a library was that it was one of the last spaces where anyone can come and exist without having to spend money. That’s my wish number 1 and 2 all in one. More of this, please.

3. Let us build something deliberately small and lightweight. Just a few hours ago, I had to stop myself from screaming at a computer screen: “Please stop adding new features to this, we’re done and it’s working!” You’re not going to build an everything app. You’re not winning the best website contest. You won’t out-feature everyone with your new gizmo. The one race I don’t see anyone even signing up for is the race to be smaller. You’ll soon see why it matters.

4. Let us build something that doesn’t live on US servers. This is one reason why it helps to be small. Everyone in Europe (from education to security, from small businesses to healthcare) is realizing it this week: they’re helpless without Amazon’s buckets, and they can’t guarantee what this business model will look like after January 2025.

5. Let us build something deliberately ephemeral. Who says you need constant uptime? Who says your online presence must be global and non-stop? I know of online magazines whose servers depend on locally generated and stored solar energy. If the servers are down, nobody can download it. The founders know this and are cool with that - they’ve considered the above alternative scenarios before the rest of the world was even aware of them.

6. Let us build something multilingual. The illusion that we will all somehow end up “speaking American” is weak, fragile, and untenable. There are languages out there you havent’ fallen in love with yet. There are people who have been holding back on sharing their words, stories, cultures - because of the Vader choke of English. Well, make next year the one that counts. Pob lwc. Powodzenia.

7. Let us build something away from big social media. The alternatives have been there for a long while. There are more coming. There will be more to come. Next year, I will start rapidly losing respect for anyone who still believes that they need Twitter or Facebook presence for their new projects. Don’t waste your mana.

8. Let us build something that sparks joy. I’m done solemnly building, writing, voting, teaching and organising to “stop Bad Thing A from happening” or to “convince those who support Evil Plan B that they’re wrong” or “reverse and repair the damage done by Calamity C”. I want what I want. I know I’ve got a dozen things in my “Someday” folder which stupidly excite me. Plans to yoke my skill, hope, joy and desire together and make something truly bonkers. I was putting these plans off. I know you were, too. How about it?

9. Let us build something with no AI whatsoever. Listen, if you were OK with AI before the November election, then that means you are OK with (or ignorant of… same thing in the end) all AI’s footnotes and caveats, even as we speedrun all the negative consequences without seeing any of the promised benefits. Suit yourself. Here’s all I have to say on this. It still gives me joy to write, code, shoot, play, and draw without AI. And next year, I wish we would built more of these less sleek, more time consuming, but more joyful things.

10. Let us build something that tracks nobody. You don’t need user data. You don’t need advertising cookies. You don’t need analytics. You don’t need accounts, biometrics, location. You can build your thing and make sure it’s out there and still never touch any of these areas. This is how this blog works. This is how all internet used to work. And before internet, this is how much of reality used to work. Whatever you’re building, remind yourself of what it’s like to plan and build these things. Your skills won’t go to waste, I reckon.

I hope to come back to this list on New Year’s Day, pick an idea from my “Someday” file and get to work. Maybe you will, too.