Where did MeCaptcha come from?

MeCaptcha didn’t come from a pitch deck. It came from a childhood on the early internet — and from watching that same internet drift away from what made it meaningful. This is that story, in blog form.

Our story

I was born in 1980. As a "Xennial," I'm part of that small cohort who had a childhood we remember both before the internet — and after. I think that vantage point provides a unique perspective on technology and what it has done to the way we relate to one another.

When I was a kid, I quickly became fascinated by the idea of being "online." Before the World Wide Web — even before America Online — there was a loose network of dial-up Bulletin Board Systems. My first modem was 1200 baud. I built a computer from scratch, installed a dedicated phone line in my house, and launched my own BBS.

In those days, if someone wanted to connect, they had to dial your specific phone number. You could host simple text-based games and file libraries — but the systems that really mattered were the ones built around community.

If someone wrote a message in New York, BBS networks would dial one another overnight, syncing messages from system to system across the country until someone in California could read it and respond. To me, this felt like a miracle.

I grew up in a small town and often struggled to relate to the people around me. But this online world opened up possibilities for connection and belonging that were deeply meaningful. I found "my people" there long before social media existed.

Kids Only Online — and a moment in Boston

When America Online arrived, I was captivated. My first meaningful job — at 13 years old — was working on AOL's "Kids Only Online" platform as a chat moderator and online game leader. I have a lot of great memories from that time, but one stands out.

I had the chance to meet many of the people I worked with online — both kids and adults — in real life at a Macworld Expo in Boston. I remember meeting in the hotel lobby and running across the room to hug the woman who founded Kids Only Online.

There was still no World Wide Web then. The closest thing to a website was an AOL keyword. (Kids Only Online — keyword: "KOOL.")

Why MeCaptcha

The idea for MeCaptcha was born out of those early memories — of what the internet could be at its best: a place of connection, community, and access to people like you, even when you couldn't find them offline.

Unfortunately, as the internet has grown and matured, online interactions have become far less wholesome. Finding genuine community has become harder.

Sometimes it's real people hiding behind anonymity, saying and doing things they would never do face-to-face. Other times it's bots — deliberately engineered to provoke anger, amplify division, or incite violence. Either way, authentic human connection has eroded.

It became clear to me that much of this stems from a loss of humanity online. We're never quite sure whether we're interacting with another real person — and that uncertainty makes it easier to disregard our own humanity in the process.

MeCaptcha is designed to restore that sense of human presence and accountability.

How it works

On today's internet, we're constantly asked to prove ourselves — usually by entering a six-digit code sent to our phone or email. These micro-events are small confirmations of our humanity. Individually they're trivial. But accumulated over time, they form a powerful signal of trust.

MeCaptcha turns those signals into something meaningful.

As you verify yourself across the web, you accumulate "humanity credits." And then, you get to spend them — signing your interactions online.

Whether it's a blog comment, a forum post, an email, or any of the countless ways we communicate digitally, attaching your MeCaptcha signature signals that you stand behind your words as a verified human being.

It's a small shift — but one that has the potential to reshape how we engage with one another online.

Why it matters to us

As a kid, the connection and community I found on the early internet was life-affirming — in some ways even life-saving. And in many respects, that has remained true into adulthood.

MeCaptcha was born from a desire to make that kind of human connection possible again — to help restore a more authentic, more accountable, and more humane internet.

---

For the full Our Story page (including photos from the early days), visit Our Story.