> social network companies who have more than X users need to use open and decentralized protocols The problem with this is that a corporation can claim that i

> social network companies who have more than X users need to use open and decentralized protocols The problem with this is that a corporation can claim that its protocol is open and decentralized, while in practice making it hard for others to implement. Remember how Microsoft managed to make .docx an ISO standard, even though Microsoft Word was the only application that would be able to read and write it 100%? Also, once an open protocol is widespread, embrace–extend–extinguish is possible because the dominant player can claim that while it still supports the protocol as written, the world moves on and it needs to add some new functionality that its peers won't be able to implement in at least the short term.