Nathan Schneider's new book Governable Spaces revolves around the key observation that online associational life is typically authoritarian in its governance, what he calls "implicit feudalism." It's a really smart point, and Schneider does a good job tracing the authoritarian default of online spaces, where typically the founders of an online group get to make all the rules for the group, indefinitely.

I don't really buy the grander claims that the lack of democracy online is leading us to authoritarianism offline, but Schneider doesn't really put a lot of force behind making that link. Nevertheless, it could still be good for our online associational lives to be more democratic, and Schneider presents a number of creative ideas about how we could go about making that online democracy happen.

But, here's the thing, Group decision making, democracy, politics—they can be a real drag.

When I am thinking about joining a website, the promise of getting a chance to argue with strangers about what we should do next is not a selling point. Later, if I come to care deeply, I may be very grateful for the chance to have a say, but it's not what gets me in the door, and may well dissuade me from stepping through.

Most of people who buy a condo aren't doing it because they want a condo board.

Most of the best fun I've had in my life have been in big group projects that required lots of group decision making--putting together community circuses, political activism, starting a business, marriage. But, I've also spent a lot of time participating in group decision making for endeavors and institutions that were very, very far from the best fun. Democracy can be a joy, but it often isn't. I do wish the book attended more to designing for democratic joy.

Schneider returns often to Hirschman's classic enumerations of how people can respond to a bad situation: loyalty, exit, and voice. Under the authoritarian default of online spaces, our only recourse is to exit. Schneider would like us to have effective voice.

But a democracy that's only important when things are dire doesn't sound like a lot of fun.