Welcome to the Post-Naive Internet
The dream of a free and open Internet isn't dead—but in 2025, it's definitely more complicated.
For the launch of Nothing Personal, Mozilla Foundation’s new online magazine, we wrote an essay about the people and projects that are building alternative digital infrastructures in what we call the post-naive mindset.
Many of the projects we talk about are ones that we’ve joined and participated in early on: Subvert, the collectively owned bandcamp. Metalabel, the platform for collaboratively releasing creative work. Trust, the community and Berlin-based network of utopian conspirators. Future Art Ecosystems, Serpentine’s project for building 21st century cultural infrastructure. Perfectly Imperfect, the newsletter turned social network for human-led recommendations. And many more.
Our thesis: as Silicon Valley makes its pivot into its “Hard Tech” era, where the disrupting force of last decade’s consumer apps will seem innocent compared to the world-dominating mind-intruding superintelligences of the future, the people building alternatives are also entering their post-naive era. To “just buidl” (as many now-long-gone web3 projects once proclaimed) isn’t enough anymore in light of the broader structural and systemic forces at play today.
New World Order 2025 is a manual for anyone trying to make sense of the present. It contains ideas, context and language to participate in shaping the world that emerges in front of our eyes.
Released by co—matter on Metalabel on July 21 2025.
First edition digital PDF limited to 1000.
The roundtable call on September 10, 2025 is specifically targeted at companies, organisations and individuals who're interested in the practical implications (communication, positioning, strategy) of the ideas presented in this memo.
The physical editions (riso print and t-shirt) are beloved collector editions to manifest this release in physical form. ATTENTION: They can ONLY be picked up at our studio in Berlin (no shipping) because we believe in IRL encounters and local supply chains.
Every item comes with the digital PDF included.
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Last updated: July 23, 2025 ■ 11:52am