I think there are practical concerns too that push away from openness and towards silos - it isn't just about money.
Open protocols can be slow to improve because of the very nature of their openness - they have dependencies and need to remain interoperable.
Closed protocols can adapt faster because one entity controls the entire thing. In the case of chat XMPP was in the lead for a while, but the mobile situation was terrible - connections were constantly dropped and even though there were clients that supported multiple accounts (Meebo) it was a pretty bad software experience. The current messaging products are not open, but they are better.
This is a shame I think - because it'd be a lot better if the open products were actually better, not just better because they are open.
Maybe the trick is to hack on a better open protocol, but even then it could similarly be outpaced. Maybe the path to this is defining an open 'social' protocol and fixing the internet identity issue at the same time. Maybe keybase.io can do this?
Open protocols can be slow to improve because of the very nature of their openness - they have dependencies and need to remain interoperable.
Closed protocols can adapt faster because one entity controls the entire thing. In the case of chat XMPP was in the lead for a while, but the mobile situation was terrible - connections were constantly dropped and even though there were clients that supported multiple accounts (Meebo) it was a pretty bad software experience. The current messaging products are not open, but they are better.
This is a shame I think - because it'd be a lot better if the open products were actually better, not just better because they are open.
Maybe the trick is to hack on a better open protocol, but even then it could similarly be outpaced. Maybe the path to this is defining an open 'social' protocol and fixing the internet identity issue at the same time. Maybe keybase.io can do this?