The Declaration

Hello, my name is Trenton McNelly, and I need to tell you something important.

The world we live in today doesn't feel human anymore. Every morning, we wake up to notifications designed to hijack our attention. Every click, every scroll, every pause is measured, monetized, and manipulated. We've become products in a system that profits from our distraction, our anxiety, and our disconnection from what truly matters.

This isn't an accident. It's the result of a deliberate economic model that treats human attention as a commodity to be extracted, not as the sacred foundation of consciousness, creativity, and connection that it actually is.

But here's what I've learned after years of working inside this system: It doesn't have to be this way.

Technology should serve humanity, not the other way around. The internet should be a tool for human flourishing, not a machine for behavioral manipulation. Our data should belong to us, our stories should be told by us, and our digital lives should reflect our actual values—not the values that someone else wants to sell us.

This is why I founded Ad+Verb Foundation as an open-source, non-profit organization. Not to build another company that extracts value from people, but to steward infrastructure that gives value back to people. To create tools that restore personal sovereignty in the digital age.

We call this the Participation Economy—a future where individuals own their identity, declare their needs, and participate as equals. Not extraction. Not surveillance. Just honest exchange.

Like Tim Berners-Lee created HTTP/HTML and stewarded it through W3C to prevent proprietary takeover, we're doing the same with identity infrastructure. The Ad+Card protocol is our first product—an open standard for decentralized identity built on W3C standards (DIDs, Verifiable Credentials, Decentralized Web Nodes).

The foundation ensures the protocol stays open, decentralized, and owned by everyone. Meanwhile, Ad+Verb Labs (our for-profit company) commercializes the protocol by building products like Vibe-Score.ai and offering strategic consulting services.

This isn't just about technology. It's about reclaiming our humanity in an increasingly digital world. It's about building systems that enhance human connection rather than exploit it. It's about creating a future where technology serves human flourishing, not corporate profits.

The infrastructure must be built by the people, for the people. The foundation protects it. The labs commercialize it. And together, we create a more human internet.

Your data. Your choices. Your ecosystem.

Will you join us?