Yancey Strickler has spent two decades building infrastructures to support  creators for two decades. He co-founded Kickstarter in 2009 - and came to Sónar+D in 2015 to talk about it -  upending the traditional commercial logic that underpinned private artistic and cultural funding. A former music critic for Pitchfork, Spin and Village Voice, he also co-hosts the New Creative Era podcast with Joshua Citarella.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Strickler has continued to fight for creator and artist rights, understanding that every technological leap forward requires us to think up new tools and ways to support autonomy. His most recent initiative is Metalabel, an online publishing platform for creators and writers that functions in a similar way to Bandcamp, letting artists sell digital and physical works directly to their audience. 

But his most interesting recent work might be the Dark Forest Internet, a term he coined that was inspired by science fiction writer Cixin Liu’s international bestseller The Three-Body Problem. He first developed the concept in a blogpost back in 2019 before publishing a fully-fledged book on the idea in 2024. In short, it’s a call to move towards a more private, decentralised internet, out of reach of big tech and major platforms. 

He’s since gone even further, leading the development of DFOS (Dark Forest Operating System), which provides an alternative infrastructure for artists and creators to regain control of what they do and what they sell. More than just ‘another platform’, it’s an escape hatch from the current model of the internet.

At Sónar+D, he’ll deliver an interactive lecture that explores these ideas, as well as other reflections on the history, evolution and prospects for the internet in 2026.