FreeWillWave now has a fuse — and the experiment needs you

In short. FreeWillWave is a worldwide social experiment carried by a single person, and the more it grows, the more it costs to run. To stop being afraid of its own success, Serge has installed a "fuse": if resources run short, the site automatically switches to slow mode, without losing anything, while funding is found. Thanks to this protection, he can finally make the experiment known more widely. To keep growing, it needs supporters, the shop, and above all your contacts: journalists, companies, creators, people who fund projects.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who has decided to take part in FreeWillWave.

You have arrived from many countries, sometimes alone, sometimes invited by someone. You have taken your place in this worldwide social experiment with an extremely simple idea: we want a world that respects the human being.

And here, the human being comes first.

A worldwide social experiment, quite simply

I call FreeWillWave a worldwide social experiment because that is exactly what it is.

A site available in 15 languages invites people all over the world to join the experiment, and then to observe what happens.

No leader to follow.
No ideology to adopt.
No battle to fight.

Simply human beings who want a more human world, arriving one after another, all over the planet.

And we watch this gathering come to life.

That is the experiment.

There is not really anything you must do after you arrive. You can simply watch. Come back tomorrow. Watch the map evolve. See a new country appear. See someone send energy to the other side of the world. Discover that one human has just invited ten, a hundred or a thousand others.

You can take part more if you feel like it.

But there is no obligation.

I have built a whole system to tell what is happening

From the beginning, my work has mainly been about trying to make this experiment visible and alive.

When someone sends energy, it is a bit like a little hello: they are simply saying "I am here". This energy can appear on the map and bring the gathering to life.

Invitations allow the experiment to travel from one person to another.

Articles tell its evolution day by day. Every Sunday, the week is told again in an article that also serves as the basis for the Sunday podcast and the video published on YouTube.

FreeWillWave also has its album, which you can listen to, download and even use for karaoke.

A FreeWillWave TV channel runs on YouTube and Twitch, 24 hours a day. It presents the experiment and regularly updates its information.

The X channel can automatically publish the evolution of the statistics.

Messages can keep you informed of what is happening.

The map, the charts, the lists, the story, the music, the videos, the live stream, the invitations, the energy…

All of this exists for one single reason:

to allow you to live this experiment in the way that suits you.

And sometimes, something incredible happens

There have been moments when I truly saw what FreeWillWave could become.

Free Human #805 Chizo1germany (Germany), for example, single-handedly invited 3,690 people.

That dynamic helped to bring about roughly **7,000 sign-ups in a single day**.

For a few hours, people were arriving almost continuously. The map was moving. Energy was being sent in all directions. New human beings were appearing second after second.

And all of this without competition, without attacks against anyone, without an enemy to point to.

Just because human beings wanted to take part.

It is in those moments that I understand why I have sometimes called FreeWillWave "the most beautiful story ever told".

Because the story is not written in advance.

We watch it happen.

But there is a paradox

Now I need to talk to you about a very concrete problem.

I like to define myself as an agoraphobic computer scientist.

I have spent a huge number of years alone behind screens. Building a system, solving a technical problem or automating something comes much more naturally to me than contacting journalists, companies or strangers to ask them to take an interest in my work.

And so far, FreeWillWave has essentially been built in this way: from behind my screen.

I have not yet organised any real campaign towards the press to make this experiment known.

I have not launched any major operation with influencers.

And yet, when a single person can bring about several thousand sign-ups in one day, one thing becomes obvious:

communicating more can make FreeWillWave grow very quickly.

But the more FreeWillWave grows, the more expensive it is to run.

That is where the paradox lies.

I could do much more to make the experiment known.

But if it works too well, I must be able to bear the financial consequences immediately.

I do not want the success of FreeWillWave to become a punishment for the person who created it — me!

So I have installed a fuse

In recent weeks, this question has been on my mind a lot.

My personal resources have limits. I have already committed a huge amount of means to this project and I cannot be the financial guarantor of an experiment that, by definition, can become much bigger than me.

So I decided to build what I call the FreeWillWave fuse.

Its principle is simple.

As long as the site has the means it needs to operate, FreeWillWave runs fully and continues to evolve.

If the available means become insufficient, the site can automatically switch to slow mode.

Some particularly costly features are then suspended or reduced in order to sharply lower spending while the necessary funding is sought.

The experiment does not disappear.

The data is not lost.

The Wave does not start over from zero.

The site simply protects itself so that it can continue.

This mechanism changes a great deal for me.

Because from the moment this fuse exists, I can finally accept the idea of making FreeWillWave known much more widely without risking that a sudden success creates an impossible financial situation.

Why think about this now?

Because my ambition for this experiment is great.

Very great.

My personal goal would be to one day see 200 million human beings take part in FreeWillWave.

I know perfectly well how disproportionate that number may seem.

But an experiment like this is only interesting if you also accept to ask yourself what would happen if it really worked.

According to my current estimates, running an infrastructure intended for hundreds of millions of users could eventually represent something like 250,000 dollars per month.

Of course, we are not there yet.

But precisely: if FreeWillWave is to be able to become big, it is better to build its funding model now rather than discover the problem later.

The project must gradually learn to finance its own existence.

How FreeWillWave can continue

Today, several possibilities exist.

You can directly support the running of the project online.

You can also buy a T-shirt, a mug or other items from the FreeWillWave shop.

The shop's income also contributes to the development and running of the experiment.

I am also open to companies, organisations, patrons, partners and people who would like to contribute in a more significant way.

But there is one limit that will not change:

I will not accept funding that forces FreeWillWave to abandon what it stands for.

The human being comes first.

A financial partner does not become the owner of the experiment, of its human beings or of their choices.

My role is not to turn FreeWillWave into a commercial machine.

My role is to protect what allows this experiment to exist.

A press kit is also available for journalists, media, creators and organisations who want to understand the project, its history, how it works and its evolution.

And for the first time, I am now ready to truly go and meet them.

I probably need your contacts more than your money

I also want to be very clear about one point.

When I say that FreeWillWave needs you, I am not thinking only of your wallet.

You may know someone.

A journalist.
A company.
An entrepreneur.
A foundation.
A content creator.
A communications manager.
A person who funds projects.
Or simply someone to whom this story might speak.

A few good encounters can sometimes have much more effect than thousands of small contributions.

If you think you know someone who should see FreeWillWave, tell them what is happening here.

Show them the experiment.

Then let that person decide.

That is perfectly in the spirit of the project.

This is only the beginning

The creation of this fuse was preceded by difficult moments.

I could see a rather strange situation taking shape: being afraid that the project would work too well because I would not be able to finance its success.

Today, that fear is much less present.

The protection system exists.

Crowdfunding exists.

The shop exists.

The press kit exists.

And I can finally start truly communicating about FreeWillWave.

If you ever see the site switch to slow mode, do not see it as the end of the experiment.

See it for what it is:

a protection that allows the experiment to continue without putting the experiment in danger.

I obviously hope that we will never need to activate it.

And that is where you can play a role.

Not by receiving orders.

Not by having to carry out a mission.

Simply by deciding, as from the very first day, how much energy you want to give to that world.

Personally, I have made my choice.

I prefer to devote my energy to building something that respects the human being rather than to feeding what does not respect it.

FreeWillWave is the way I have found to do that.

Today, the experiment has its fuse.

And now, it needs us to keep growing.

The shop is open. T-shirts, mugs and other items are waiting for you at the FreeWillWave shop, and every purchase contributes to the running of the experiment.

— Serge Brocteur
Creator of FreeWillWave