By KATE POSS
Special to The Record
Fitch Daniel Pitney, whose career immersed him in the world of data wrangling, is on a mission to “make our online community our own. This starts with creating essential directory services so community members can access a comprehensive and inclusive catalog of everything our community has to offer.”
He created South Whidbey Online, or SWO, a social purpose corporation, which has indexed 621 local organizations, all organized on one website. It’s at southwhidbey.online.
Pitney envisions independent Whidbey Islanders taking control of how we connect online so that it’s not up to big tech to determine which local resources are visible and which are not.
“Now it’s a slow boil for local communities,” he said.
He used the analogy of a frog not knowing it’s being slowly cooked until it’s too late. He believes we’re like the frog, not knowing that our online identities are being owned and controlled by the big tech platforms we’re using.
“For instance, if you believe in buying locally,” he explained, “chances are you rely on farmers markets, newsletters and word of mouth. In the online world, however, most of us couldn’t name more than three to five local, online shopping resources, because going online is synonymous with visiting the ‘the global internet’ where search results are awarded to the highest bidders, local or not. Before I started SWO, I thought, maybe there are only three to five local online shopping options here. After a deep-dive research to find all South Whidbey organizations, it turns out at least 66 offer online shopping. That’s more than enough to warrant a visit before heading over to Amazon.”
Visiting the South Whidbey Online site, there’s a handy checkbox to show all local online shopping resources, but that’s by no means the focus. In-person will always be better and more sustainable than online commerce, so the site is really about being able to find any types of resources without the gatekeeping which occurs in advertising-based systems such as Google and Facebook.
Community members can search or browse a range of categories, including pet services, arts and culture, community and nonprofits, construction and real estate, education and training, fitness and recreation, food and dining, health care and wellness, services and retail, and travel and tourism.
Sharing some similarity, Drewslist is a local daily resource delivered by email subscription. It acts as a community marketplace and bulletin board for events, pets, sales, housing, deaths, health and services and more. What Pitney proposes is more like an online phonebook, but with modern portability so that anyone can include the directory on their website and any community member can edit/add/change their own profile in an easy self-service fashion.
Having worked in the world of big tech, Pitney is concerned about its growing dominance in our lives, and how it monetizes every click we make. He’s fond of a mantra, recently gleaned from a bumper sticker he saw: “Make Orwell Fiction Again.”
George Orwell – whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair – wrote several novels, including dystopian fiction tales “Animal Farm” in 1945, and “1984” in 1949. Orwell wrote of an imagined reality with ominous themes reflecting his distrust of brute power, and warning of truth perishing in the face of authoritarian rule.
Concerned that advertisers and trending often lead Google searches, Fitch researched Whidbey businesses and discovered that “92% of local data is not available on Google. I realized Google has pivoted from its role as a gateway to a gatekeeper. If you want results, you must pay,” said Fitch about the tech giant. “I have high regard for Google’s founders as being best in data science. I don’t blame them for being in the capitalist system They report to shareholders and it’s the race to the top, which chokes out local entities.”
Having moved to Whidbey during the COVID pandemic, Pitney prioritized care of his daughters, now in third and sixth grades, with his work life.
He now works part-time helping small businesses leverage open source software, so they don’t have to sign up for costly new subscriptions every time they’re missing just one minor feature.
“Small businesses can benefit from open source software where you don’t have to be beholden to a big tech,” said Pitney. “You can still own and control your data. I’m helping companies migrate from big tech’s cloud services to their own private clouds. Actually, it’s way better at comparable rates.”
We are in the midst of unprecedented change with respect to AI, Pitney notes, citing a Jan. 13, 2026 Reuters article that reported Google’s being sued by publications such as Rolling Stone, Variety and Billboard magazines for leading viewers to AI-generated content about the magazines, rather than visiting the magazine’s actual webpages. Copyright infringement and reduction of revenue to the publications generated by the searches were among the charges brought against Google and Alphabet Inc.
“Google keeping viewers on their own site with AI summaries is just the beginning,” said Pitney. “Google’s already testing how you can shop online, all within Google’s AI chat, while never having to visit the actual website you’re buying from.”
“It’s hard enough, even for big tech to keep up at this pace of change,” noted Pitney. “Just think, Google and ChatGPT will be competing directly with Amazon, right here in 2026. So, I don’t really expect we on South Whidbey will be able to get out in front of this pace of change either. I just know we have to try. Trying can be as simple as starting a conversation, and it can be putting the flag in the ground to define who we are, so that big tech doesn’t get to answer that question for us at our own expense.”
Pitney recalled “Moores’ Law” as the prediction that turned out to be accurate, “though the associated economic benefits seem to be disproportionately captured by big tech,” he mused.
Moore’s Law was coined in 1965 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore. He observed that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles approximately every two years, effectively making the computers of today thousands of times more powerful than they were just a few decades ago.
Pitney added that even with incredible advances in technology, people are still reliant on websites and email newsletters as if it was the year 2000.
“Part of the mission of SWO,” he said, “is to modernize how we can connect locally, starting with this fancy database, which makes it possible for islanders to view and update our directory info in real time. For instance, imagine you’re running late and won’t be able to open your shop until later in the morning. No problem. Just update your business hours – or ask another community member, including me, to update it for you, and you’re off to the races.”
