Manifesto
Something has quietly gone wrong with being online.
We were promised connection. We got feeds built to keep us scrolling. We were promised a global village, and got a place where you can't always tell who's a person and who's a machine wearing a person's face. The tools meant to bring us together started measuring us instead — counting our attention, selling it, and calling that community.
It doesn't have to be this way. So we're building something else.
What we believe
Everyone online should be a real person. Not a bot, not a farm, not a stranger's second face. Just people.
You can be real and still be private. You shouldn't have to hand over your name, your face, or your data to have a seat at the table. Being anonymous should never mean being surrounded by fakes.
Connecting is the point — and the kindest thing an app can do is help you connect, then let you go live your life. Not keep you.
A moment matters most when it's true: a real person, in a real place, at a real time. Not content to be optimized. A memory to be kept.
The only thing worth counting is genuine appreciation between people — and it should only ever be given, never taken, and never faked.
Attention is not care. Reach is not friendship. A number is not a life.
The world we're building
Main's World is our answer. It's a map of real people and real moments, where everyone is a verified human and everyone stays anonymous. A place you visit to find your people — across time, across distance — not a place designed to hold on to you.
We call this kind of place a SHIP: a Secure Human Interaction Protocol. It's a small idea with a large consequence. When you can trust that everyone is human, everything built on top of that can be warmer, calmer, and more honest.
None of this is nostalgia for an internet that never existed. It's a wager that the next one can be better — quieter where it should be quiet, generous where it should be generous, and human all the way down.
Come as you are
The internet can be good for people again. We think that's worth building, and worth building in the open — which is why even these words are yours to improve.
If any of this sounds like the world you want to be part of, there's a place for you here. You're a Main. Welcome.
This manifesto is community-editable, like everything on this site. Help shape it — see Contribute.