Resist Tech Monopolies (RTM) is a collective that aims to build & support community alternatives to big tech. One of our projects is a self-hosted and distributed photo sharing application that will be an alternative to proprietary platforms like Google and iCloud Photos. Alternatives already exist; however, there are several barriers to more people adopting these tools, including cost of physical infrastructure, required tech skills, time and energy, and a lack of desired features. In this talk we present the case for resisting tech monopolies like Google Photos, go through the technical details of how we set up a community photo hosting platform, and share our lessons learned on the process.

Coop-cloud is a federation of tech cooperatives that builds shared cloud tools and democratically govern the maintenance and development of these tools. The talk goes through coop-cloud's governing structure, what tools they developed (with some practical examples), and what are the challenges of this model.