PrimetimeGeek independent tech news · est. 2009
Interoperability, gatekeeping and the three arguments underneath them
Evergreen background on why platform disputes keep producing the same four positions.
Most platform policy disputes reduce to three questions asked in a bad order: who owns the connection, who bears the cost of opening it, and who is liable when the opened path is abused.
Interoperability arguments usually stall on the second question. Mandating an interface is cheap to legislate and expensive to maintain, and the maintenance cost lands on whichever party has the most to lose from the interface breaking, which is rarely the party that asked for it.
Liability is where the positions harden. A platform that must answer for third-party misuse will build the narrowest possible interface, and the narrowest possible interface satisfies the letter of an interoperability rule while producing none of its intended effects. This is not evasion so much as a predictable response to an unallocated risk.
Sources
- Policy summary