[solardev]

I'd want to build some a generalized community-making/matchmaking system that can bring supply and demand together, but optimized for user satisfaction instead of external profit. For everything like:

* Nonprofit online dating that emphasizes quality matches and relationship satisfaction, not Match Group profits

* Municipal Uber/Lyft that connects drivers and passengers and takes a minimum cut just to maintain the service, with an increased emphasis on carpooling/ridesharing to decrease traffic

* A better Craigslist for apartment finding, with good filters, integrated background/application scoring, etc. that's run as a community service for both renters and landlords, cutting out the profit-driven middlemen and helping both sides quickly and easily find matches

* A better scheduling system for college courses, with integrated calendaring/schedule solving and a much better UX

* Community solar, where different neighbors can come together to buy a small solar farm (like a community garden) and then all share in the power produced without having to install small systems on each home. Much better economies of scale, but higher overhead since you're essentially running a small biz and responsible to multiple stakeholders

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In my mind all of these are essentially the same problems, having a robust graph in the backend, building exceptional UX on the frontend, earning and increasing trust with users through reputation systems and humans-in-the-loop (for things like background checks for rents and drivers)... and most importantly, being able to do so with user-aligned incentives or free money (funding isn't a problem).

All of these are relatively solved problems from a technical angle, but not really from a societal angle, because they're often predatory middlemen services. I wish we could rebuild their whole stacks in a reusable way and federate the services in a FOSS model across municipalities/states/nations. To me they could just be basic infrastructure services that governments provide and maintain for the betterment of their citizens.

[vegetablepotpie]

This seems similar to the types of projects that Code for America works on.

https://codeforamerica.org/about-us/

[solardev]

Hmm, interesting, thanks for sharing! Their open engineering positions are a bit old-fashioned, but nothing too bad. And their ask for "Experience with the justice system, social safety net, or other mission relevant experience" really speaks to me. I'd be very interested in applying if I didn't have a commitment to my current employer. I will have to keep them in mind for the future. Thank you for the tip!

[goksankobe]

Sometimes we just need a single variant of such fundamental services that just "works", but today we, in a very wasteful manner, get hundreds of variants each of which is trying to steal some percentage of the pie. Yeah sure thats how capitalism works and competition fuels improvement, but I think its also ridding us on bringing much more users under a single umbrella to maximize the interactions.

[solardev]

Yeah, it's a delicate balance, isn't it? On one hand having too many similar choices just leads to decision paralysis (and in the case of Match Group's dating services, they are all so similar these days it's kinda pointless anyway... a bunch of false choices with similar algorithms). On the other hand, governments also tend not to be very innovative or user-friendly (tried to handle DMV stuff or taxes lately?).

But I would love to see a model where the private sector can continue to innovate, but the government at some point steps in to buy/nationalize some operations (like a national fiber rollout, or basic digital infrastructure) the same way they build roads or other civil infrastructure.