For Everyone: Towards a Sustainable Future for Independent Standards Work

The problems

Problem Wasted resources, missed opportunities

Most web stakeholders spend 💸millions💸 working around web platform pain points instead of fixing them at the source. **Why?** - Standards landscape opaque and intimidating - No human resources to drive the work - Misconceptions around timeline (_“it takes a decade to get a proposal shipped”_) - Lack of clarity on benefits

Problem Essential, rare expertise, lost

Indie web standards designers exist, but: - Scarcity of funding sources - Near-impossible to get funding for big picture R&D work - Often >50% of work still a labor of love - Often have to work on other things to make ends meet

Problem As a result, the Web loses

- **Lack of diversity.** Web platform shaped by needs of very large players. - **Lack of big picture vision or R&D.** Incremental improvements, driven by short-term needs.

Can we fix this?

Florian’s mini case study

An entity (details TBD) to abstract the details of the web standards process - **For companies:** Get pain points fixed without becoming a web standards expert - **For indie web standards designers:** Get discovered & paid for your work

## People who've been looking into this - **Lea Verou** (ex TAG, CSS WG, TC39) - **Florian Rivoal** (CSS WG, i18n WG, ex AB) - **Miriam Suzanne** (CSS WG) - **Jordan Harband** (TC39) - **Cassondra Roberts** (CSS WG)

## Example problem types - Design solutions to web platform pain points - Champion existing solutions forwards - Spec maintenance - Design review as a service - So, you just joined W3C. Let us teach you how to make the most of it.

A range of options

- **Left side of the spectrum:** Researching user needs & designing proposals - **Right side of the spectrum:** Researching user needs, designing & championing proposals, spec work, tests, devrel, docs (via Open Web Docs), browser implementation (via Igalia), etc.

Complementary

- Not trying to replace/compete with implementation consultancies - Happy to partner up

## Plausible funding paths - **Stage 1: Agency model**. Single company → pain point → work - **Stage 2: Crowdsourcing model**. Pain point → companies → work - **Stage 3: Nonprofit/Grant-based model**. Pain point → work

Benefits for web stakeholders

### Who build the Web - Allocate resources to organizationally challenging stages - Expand available resources and expertise - Avoid echo chamber effects - Good PR

### Who build _for_ the Web - Often cheaper to fix the problem at the source - Pool resources to scratch a collective itch - Strategic advantage - Good PR

## TBD - Non-profit, PBC or both? - Seed funding vs bootstrapping? - Biggest challenge: Can we convince smaller companies? - Governance model