Comment by swed420

> There must always be an owner and don't trust "the people" to be anything more than a populist's device to assign legitimacy to their supporters and other dissenters.

That's a false dichotomy, especially in the example of vTaiwan, since it was a creation that operated in parallel with an already existing government.

Basically, the platform itself didn't have any direct political power because at the end of the day it was "just an app" or series of apps.

However, even without official power, its low barrier to public consensus building (that you call populism) enabled an efficient and highly organized form of government critique and accountability. This created a near realtime public awareness of the real world intricacies of problem X, Y, or Z that did not exist previously, and put pressure on the politicians in power to take these conclusions/demands somewhat seriously. It also literally helped them do their jobs better, and was far more responsive and precise than traditional electoral implementations.