Preface

The optimist in me wants to say we can fix [the internet]. That better regulation, different business models, conscious technology design could reclaim the promise. And maybe that’s true.

But the realist in me sees the incentive structures. Sees how much money flows from keeping things exactly as they are.

— Kenneth Reitz, The Internet Is a Net Negative, December 2025

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polis
  • polis connects independently-owned websites into a single internet-sized social network.
  • Instead of an identity on X and an identity on Meta and … you have 1 identity: your polis domain.
  • Your content is served as static files. Your follower list is … just a list of links.
  • polis is open source and built for agents as much as for humans.
A row of connected site cards centred on one in focus. The centre card names its two parts, identity on top and content below. The cards either side replace identity with a person's own domain - alice.ink and marcus.photo - each with content beneath, the same shape on both sides. Links clasp the cards together, and blank cards fade off to left and right, a network with no edge.
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The shape of polis
  • Every polis user needs a domain.
  • A polis site is static files.
  • polis is designed for consumers who want an open-web social network.
  • polis treats agents as first-class citizens.
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polis × Vercel

Vercel’s lines of business, and what polis brings to each:

  • ✓ Domains — sold to someone other than a developer.
  • ✓ Static file hosting — new market, same infra.
  • — Direct-to-consumer — a door Vercel doesn’t have today.
  • ↗ v0 — a consumer audience that doesn’t know it’s building software.
  • ↗ Hydrogen — a social network the storefront doesn’t have to rent.
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Questions
  • Is the Hydrogen partnership a template, or the exception?
  • v0 is reaching a lot of people who aren’t developers. Is that a new market for Vercel, or a wider funnel into the same one?
  • Is there anything in here you’d read differently from inside Vercel?
  • What would polis have to become for Vercel to be interested?
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