The library is appealing to me because:
Precedence: pre internet I could connect to the library over a landlines and access the library and community news.
Expertise: not necessarily deep tech expertise, but with information retrieval, curation, education.
Community access: libraries are a municipal service with brick and mortar locations, and are heavily involved with community/public engagement.
For clarity, on the fediverse instance aspect. I was thinking more read only, with users being more official organizations with a barrier of entry vs. The general public. I personally wouldn’t want libraries to be moderating public discourse - this should be arms reach. And wouldn’t want them worrying about liability.
Public information (like safety bulletins for example) shouldn’t exclusively be sitting on a for profit ad platform, it’s bizarre.
Lower population in of itself is a good thing.
It’s the change that is disruptive and will cause suffering in ways that are unique to the suffering caused by over population.
As population growth slows, the younger generation needs to support more elderly. Which means we need some combination of:
Working population being more productive. Population making do with less.
However you approach it, there will be segments of the population that are very unhappy.