A new kind of infrastructure
Communities are experiments in cooperation
We once had rich tapestries of mutual aid, gift economies, and reciprocity. As we scaled, we lost them. Karmyq provides the infrastructure to bring that diversity back — starting with your neighborhood.
The Crack in the Foundation
We've turned relationships into accounting
As human societies grew, we simplified cooperation to scale. Money. Markets. Bureaucracy. These became the universal languages of exchange — efficient, but impoverished.
We lost the gift economies where people gave without expectation of return. The time banks where an hour of carpentry equaled an hour of childcare. The skill-sharing circles where expertise flowed freely. The care networks where communities held each other through hard times.
“The simplification that got us here won't get us there. We traded the rich complexity of human cooperation for something that scales — and lost the soul of community in the process.”
Every neighborhood app that reduces helping to a transaction. Every platform that turns neighbors into customers. Every system that makes you prove your worth before you can ask for help. The crack runs deep.
The Opportunity
Technology can now support complexity at scale
Bees coordinate at massive scale — but on simple tasks. Humans, with bigger brains, can coordinate on astonishingly complex tasks. But until now, we lacked the technological scaffolding to do both: complex cooperation, at community scale.
We built technology that scales monocultures: one marketplace, one social network, one way to interact. What if instead, we built technology that scales diversity? Infrastructure that supports a thousand different ways of cooperating — each one adapted to its community, its culture, its people?
Gift Economies
Give without keeping score. Build trust through generosity. Let reciprocity emerge naturally.
Time Banking
One hour of help equals one hour of help. Carpentry, cooking, tutoring — all valued equally.
Mutual Aid
Community members support each other through hard times. No means-testing. No bureaucracy.
These aren't utopian fantasies. They're how humans cooperated for millennia. We just need modern scaffolding to make them work again.
What Is Karmyq
Infrastructure for community experiments
Karmyq is an open-source platform that lets communities design their own cooperation systems. Not another marketplace. Not another social network. A toolkit for building the kind of community you actually want to live in.
Community-Owned
Each community configures its own rules, request types, and reputation system. Your community, your way.
Polymorphic Requests
Five request types out of the box — rides, services, lending, events, and general help. Or define your own.
Meaning, Not Points
Karma reflects real contributions, not gamification. It builds trust organically — and fades over time, like memory.
Privacy-First
No tracking. No ads. No selling data. Interactions fade over time. Your community's business is your own.
How It Works
Simple to start, deep to grow
You don't need to read a manifesto to get started. Just neighbors helping neighbors — with infrastructure that lets the complexity emerge.
Start a Community
Create a space for your neighborhood, co-op, or interest group. Choose which cooperation models fit your values — mutual aid, skill sharing, tool lending, or all of the above.
Ask and Offer
Post requests for help or offer your skills and time. Need a ride to the airport? Know how to fix a leaky faucet? Looking for someone to watch your dog? Every act of helping strengthens the community fabric.
Trust Grows Naturally
As people help each other, trust and reputation build organically. No artificial gamification — just real relationships forming through real interactions. Over time, your community becomes resilient.
Why Something Different
Not another neighborhood app
Existing platforms were built to extract value. Karmyq was built to create it.
| Feature | Nextdoor | Facebook Groups | Karmyq |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community-owned governance | |||
| Multiple cooperation models | |||
| Privacy-first (no tracking) | |||
| Open source | |||
| Reputation that fades | |||
| Request types (rides, lending, etc.) | Partial | ||
| Neighborhood-scale | Partial | ||
| No ads or data selling | |||
| Trust scoring | |||
| Self-hostable |
Community-owned governance
Nextdoor
Karmyq
Multiple cooperation models
Nextdoor
Karmyq
Privacy-first (no tracking)
Nextdoor
Karmyq
Open source
Nextdoor
Karmyq
Reputation that fades
Nextdoor
Karmyq
Request types (rides, lending, etc.)
Nextdoor
PartialKarmyq
Neighborhood-scale
Nextdoor
Karmyq
No ads or data selling
Nextdoor
Karmyq
Trust scoring
Nextdoor
Karmyq
Self-hostable
Nextdoor
Karmyq
Our Principles
Built on values, not valuations
Every technical decision flows from these principles. They're not marketing — they're architecture.
Open Source
Every line of code is public. Fork it, improve it, make it yours. Knowledge wants to be free — and so does the infrastructure for cooperation.
Community Sovereignty
Each community governs itself. Choose your own rules, reputation model, and request types. No one-size-fits-all. No platform override.
Privacy as Default
No tracking. No profiling. No ads. Interactions fade over time like footprints in sand. Your data belongs to your community.
Meaning-Making
We don't reduce relationships to transactions. Helping builds meaning — stories, not spreadsheets. Community, not currency.
Biomimetic Design
Inspired by how living systems organize — mycelium networks, bee colonies, forest ecosystems. Resilient, adaptive, decentralized.
No Extraction
We don't extract value from communities. No venture capital growth mandates. No monetization of relationships. Built to serve, not to scale.
Designed to Fade
Trust is a living thing, not a permanent record
In real life, relationships are shaped by recent interactions — not a permanent ledger. A neighbor who helped you last month matters more than one who helped three years ago.
Karmyq's reputation system works the same way. Karma decays naturally over time. Old interactions fade, like memories. What remains is a living sense of trust — not an immutable score.
“Meaning-making matters, not accounting.”
Today
Maria helps James move a couch
2 weeks ago
Priya gave Wei a ride to the airport
1 month ago
Carlos fixed Aisha's leaky faucet
3 months ago
Liam taught Yuki to make sourdough
6 months ago
Sarah organized a neighborhood cleanup
1 year ago
Mohamed watched Elena's dog for a week
2 years ago
David helped Mei set up her garden...
Community Stories
Real communities, real cooperation
Every community finds its own way. Here are some of the experiments in cooperation happening right now.
Sunnyside Tool Library
“We started lending tools on a spreadsheet. Now 40 families share everything from drills to carpet cleaners. Nobody needs to own everything when your neighbors have your back.”
— Maria, Community Organizer
Alberta Arts Care Circle
“When my mom got sick, I didn't know how to ask for help. The care circle made it easy — meals appeared, rides to appointments just happened. It felt like being held.”
— James, Member
Foster-Powell Time Bank
“I teach guitar. My neighbor fixes bikes. Another tutors math. One hour equals one hour, regardless of what you do. It changes how you see your neighbors.”
— Priya, Time Banker
Research Foundations
Standing on the shoulders of giants
Karmyq isn't built on tech industry hype. It's built on decades of research into how humans actually cooperate.
Commons Economics
Elinor Ostrom
Communities can self-govern shared resources more effectively than markets or states — given the right institutional design.
Governing the Commons (1990)
Reciprocity Theory
Marcel Mauss
Gift exchange creates social bonds that market transactions destroy. The obligation to give, receive, and reciprocate is the foundation of society.
The Gift (1925)
Complexity Science
Brian Arthur / Santa Fe Institute
Economies are complex adaptive systems. Diversity and adaptation, not efficiency and equilibrium, drive long-term resilience.
Complexity Economics
Platform Cooperativism
Trebor Scholz
Technology platforms can be owned and governed by the people who use them — not by investors seeking extraction.
Platform Cooperativism (2016)
Join the Movement
Rebuilding the complexity we lost
We're not building another app. We're building infrastructure for a future where communities can coordinate in ways as diverse as the people in them.
Every community that joins is another experiment. Every experiment that works teaches something. Every lesson learned is shared openly.
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Open Source
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Possible Models
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Get Involved
Every contribution matters
Whether you're organizing a community, writing code, or studying cooperation — there's a place for you.
For Community Organizers
Launch your own cooperation experiment. Configure request types, set governance rules, and grow your community organically.
Start a CommunityFor Developers
Karmyq is open source. Contribute to the platform, build integrations, or fork it to create something entirely new.
View on GitHubFor Researchers
Study cooperation models in the wild. Access anonymized data, publish findings, and help build the evidence base for community infrastructure.
Read the Research