Those of us old enough to remember BBS servers or even rainbow banners often go down the nostalgia hole about how the internet was better “back in the day” than it is now as a handful o…
Another way to encourage interoperability is to use the government to hold out a carrot in addition to the stick. Through government procurement laws, governments could require any company providing a product or service to the government to not interfere with interoperability. President Lincoln required standard tooling for bullets and rifles during the Civil War, so there’s a long history of requiring this already. If companies don’t want to play nice, they’ll lose out on some lucrative contracts, “but no one forces a tech company to do business with the federal government.”
That’s actually a very interesting idea. This benefits the govt as much as anyone else too. It reduces switching costs for govt tech.
Can confirm, I’ve worked for a company doing govt contract work and I really don’t know what it’d take for us to have walked away. They can dictate whatever terms they like and still expect to find plenty of companies happy to bid for contracts I think.
Did you also have a robustly enshittified consumer business?
I’m thinking of his classic users —> advertisers —> shareholders model and struggling to come up with companies that have that model but also thrive on government contracts.
Yelp is a pretty classic case of enshittification. What government contracts do they have?
That’s fair, and government work can feel kind of like its own parallel business ecosystem in some ways. Sort of like how most of us think of the shops and businesses that are visible to us but not the massive B2B ecosystem just under the surface.
But I think the hope is that gov can standardize and define a certain net positive thing, and use its contracts to start requiring that thing, slowly making it more widespread and therefore common. Ideally the kinks get ironed out over time, and eventually it’s in a state where you can make the leap and start to require it be in place for any application / service above a certain user count.
Bit pie in the sky, but we should be at least trying to find ways to use govt to improve our situation. Things at policy level that don’t require chronically status quo politicians to vote in our best interests.
You make great points. The problem is, our demagogues work directly for those corporations. So, the demands of corporations will always favor corporations until corporations aren’t considered constituents (which has been true since Citizens United in the US).
That’s actually a very interesting idea. This benefits the govt as much as anyone else too. It reduces switching costs for govt tech.
DoD already started this with their Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA).
And I agree, the government should use its power to force interoperable and open standards wherever possible and relevant.
Self driving vehicles are one area I’d like to see that style of standards applied.
Can confirm, I’ve worked for a company doing govt contract work and I really don’t know what it’d take for us to have walked away. They can dictate whatever terms they like and still expect to find plenty of companies happy to bid for contracts I think.
Did you also have a robustly enshittified consumer business?
I’m thinking of his classic users —> advertisers —> shareholders model and struggling to come up with companies that have that model but also thrive on government contracts.
Yelp is a pretty classic case of enshittification. What government contracts do they have?
That’s fair, and government work can feel kind of like its own parallel business ecosystem in some ways. Sort of like how most of us think of the shops and businesses that are visible to us but not the massive B2B ecosystem just under the surface.
But I think the hope is that gov can standardize and define a certain net positive thing, and use its contracts to start requiring that thing, slowly making it more widespread and therefore common. Ideally the kinks get ironed out over time, and eventually it’s in a state where you can make the leap and start to require it be in place for any application / service above a certain user count.
Bit pie in the sky, but we should be at least trying to find ways to use govt to improve our situation. Things at policy level that don’t require chronically status quo politicians to vote in our best interests.
You make great points. The problem is, our demagogues work directly for those corporations. So, the demands of corporations will always favor corporations until corporations aren’t considered constituents (which has been true since Citizens United in the US).