Telecom interoperability regulation creates competition, something platforms fear

Evidence

In the 1990s and 2000s, mobile telephone companies tried hard to prevent regulators from forcing interoperability upon them – to grant customers the right to phone, at no extra cost, numbers on a competing company’s network; or to leave while keeping their phone number. By enforcing interoperability, regulators succeeded in creating a lot more competition between telecom companies and lowering prices. The one thing cloudalists fear is cloud interoperability, i.e. allowing their users to switch to another cloud fief without losing their own data, ebooks, chat histories, photos, music, etc. However, given the complexity of personal data users would like to transfer (as opposed to one telephone number and a contacts list), it is easy to see why cloudalists are not worried. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 1001

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to today’s EU Digital Markets Act interoperability battles over iMessage and WhatsApp. — connects to: Network effects embed monopoly tendencies directly into platform structure — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 80
• QUESTION: What precisely blocks ‘data portability’ technically — is it genuinely hard engineering or designed friction?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 1001

Broader Connections

• Network effects embed monopoly tendencies directly into platform structure #complicates (0.75) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 80