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> A popular open source protocol is actually the perfect playing field for a would-be monopolist. At first I thought "email seems a good example of this: most
by the_other 4y ago
> A popular open source protocol is actually the perfect playing field for a would-be monopolist.
At first I thought "email seems a good example of this: most people don't want to leave Google, I don't want to leave FastMail"... but then I remembered that I could just leave FastMail and take my email to Google. Which proves the upthread point about the open protocol being a safety net for users.
Can you talk about some examples of monopolised open protocols?
- neilk 4y agoEmail is the paradigmatic example. You can export your mailbox and use `pine` if that's your jam. But in the real world, most users of Gmail will depend on at least one feature of Gmail that isn't easily replicable elsewhere.
- the_other 4y ago> Email is the paradigmatic example But there's no monopoly. There's feature-based lock-in built around the open protocols, and it's very effective, but it's not a monopoly.
- giobox 4y agoI wonder what gmail's churn rate even is? It is surely staggeringly close to zero.
- sokoloff 4y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if they have more churn via death (people, companies, abandoned projects) than any other single source.