Agency Matters is a publication about user agency in software
User agency, in the context of software, is the user’s ability to make meaningful choices to control their experience in a digital environment.
Agency Matters is a digital publication that takes the form of a digital garden — a practice of digital knowledge collection as a means of learning and disseminating knowledge.
The goal is to explore the concept of User Agency in technology by examining emerging technologies and software subcultures in terms of whether they espouse user agency as a goal, and the degree to which user agency is imbued in their software.
In as much as this is philosophical, it is also practical, with guides and tutorials on using software to elevate user agency based on analysis from first principles, reason, and real world usage.
Some of the themes we have in focus:
- Self hosting software
- Homelab
- Web technologies
- Peer-to-peer networking
- Local-first software
- Data sovereignty
- Web3 (for lack of a better term)
- Distributed web
- Civil disobedience
- Mesh networking
- Network protocols
- Encryption
- Right to repair
Each of these topics have thriving communities and ecosystems with very smart people collborating across the globe and continously working to make these better. In a sense, we are living through a golden age of software.
Software is playing a significant role in shaping and influencing our lives and reality. It empowers us, but we’re also dependent on it. In a sense, software is mediating the connection between the physical world and cyberspace. As such, it’s imperative to use it and engage with it meaningfully, so it serves us rather than us serving it, or some hidden algorithmic incentive loop.
About
Agency Matters was started by Daniel Norman, a software developer and blogger with over 15 years experience developing commercial and open source software.