Government should only do what only government can do. If someone else is doing it — link to it. If we can provide resources (like APIs) that will help other pe

Government should only do what only government can do. If someone else is doing it — link to it. If we can provide resources (like APIs) that will help other people build things — do that. We should concentrate on the irreducible core. That's good advice for all of government, not just digital services. For way too many government services, the irreducible core is simply the wealth transfer to make sure the better off are taxed to pay for services to be available to the poor, not actually providing the service.