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  "path": "/2026/03/24/enclosure/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-24T04:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://inkdroid.org",
  "tags": [
    "commons",
    "coop",
    "wikipedia",
    "web",
    "llm",
    "bots",
    "Peter Linebaugh",
    "design\nprinciples",
    "Digital Public\nGoods Alliance",
    "The\nCommons w/ Peter Linebaugh",
    "Mining\nthe commons: AI extraction, Wikipedia, and the case for a\nmulti-stakeholder settlement"
  ],
  "textContent": "It was interesting to see this short article 1 about the enclosure of the web commons go by after just having listened to The Dig’s epic two part interview with Peter Linebaugh 2.\n\n> What’s needed is a multi-stakeholder settlement in which large-scale users of the commons take on long-term, structured obligations to sustain it: contractual funding through paid APIs and usage-based levies, formal recognition of DPGs as Digital Public Infrastructure to unlock multilateral co-financing, and a shift in philanthropy from one-off project grants to sustained core support for the institutions that maintain the commons.\n\nI hadn’t realized that the details of these deals that Wikipedia are striking aren’t fully transparent, and well understood outside of closed doors? I think it’s really instructive to think about what is happening right now on the web as enclosure, and part of a longer history of capitalism (as Linebaugh and Denvir talk about). The interview made me think of the craft, tooling, and means of production that are still present in the software industry, but that are being actively being enclosed by the centralization of tooling and skill, craft and knowledge itself.\n\nYes, I’m talking about LLMs here. Once you see it, it’s impossible not to see it.\n\nThis all makes me think of Eleanor Ostrom’s design\nprinciples and how it is important that the Wikipedia community have insight into how their commons is being used through monitoring, decision making, resolving the future conflicts that will no doubt ensue.\n\nI’m not entirely sure I understand the potential role of the Digital Public\nGoods Alliance in all this:\n\n> Digital Public Goods (DPG) are supposed to be shielded from precisely this kind of capture. They require financing models commensurate with their public value, not models that make them fiscally dependent on their most extractive users. When the sustainability of a DPG hinges on a small oligopoly of AI firms, the risk turns political: agenda-setting and governance drift toward those who can threaten to walk away.\n\nPerhaps Wikipedia is at risk with losing its DPG status? In what practical ways does identification as a DPG help shape governance? What is being done, or can we be doing to push back on this enclosure? And of course, the situation is quite a bit bigger when you consider the strain that LLM hungry bots are putting on cultural heritage organizations, also part of a larger commons.\n\n* * *\n\n  1. The\nCommons w/ Peter Linebaugh, The Dig.↩︎\n\n  2. Mining\nthe commons: AI extraction, Wikipedia, and the case for a\nmulti-stakeholder settlement, Internet Policy Review.↩︎\n\n\n",
  "title": "Enclosure"
}