To me, the article missed the point. The central claim of the article is: "I actually think it’s time we abandon data portals altogether." I didn't find any co

To me, the article missed the point. The central claim of the article is: "I actually think it’s time we abandon data portals altogether." I didn't find any compelling argumentation to support this claim. The author mentioned some trends; however, these trends do not suggest that source data is not valuable. Rather, they are suggesting that we need to build on top of data. No surprise here! Sure, particular applications and services may appear to be more valuable than the raw data, but this does not suggest that the raw data is not valuable. Quite the opposite. I don't think any savvy person would suggest that a data portal is the end goal -- they are just the beginning. I'd suggest something simple and probably non-controversial: data portals make sense to the extent that they provide value over a long time frame (perhaps 5 to 20 years -- or longer). Here is a simple way to look at how data can add value. 1. Availability first (it has to exist). 2. Discoverability second (people and services need to find it). 3. Applications third (higher value can be extracted here). (Note about me: I've worked on a now-defunct data catalog a while back. I don't have illusions about them, and I think many can be improved in key ways. Also, I know they require more maintenance than some would admit.)