Portability and Resistance

Portability is a very underrated quality. Typically, we have a set of a few tools that help us get on with our life: maybe that is a GPS, a messaging platform, a design tool, etc.

When the tool we use is only available on one platform, then we are coerced into using only that platform, ceding more power to that one platform. When we have software that is portable, however, we can leave the platform and use something else. It therefore empowers the user, giving us a voice (and a choice).

Typically portability and compatibility is the lowest of priorities for a company, that is unless companies are obligated to consider them.

One way to make modern toolmakers prioritise portability and compatibility is through setting regulation and standards. While some argue against these type of impositions, it would not be purely a negative for companies, as they would be able to leverage the tooling that is made around these standards. However, companies would need to relinquish control, the very same control that has been taken away from users. This generates an interesting phenomenon by which adding some restrictions to what we can do when we run businesses, allows us more choice and freedom in other ways.

Another force to provoke change is through consumer demand and the market. The dominance of Internet Explorer once made it so that developers accounted only for the specifications and needs to run on Internet Explorer, making access to the internet via other browsers more difficult, and at times impossible. Internet Explorer could also leverage its dominance to set standards that permitted it to perpetuate its monopoly and, in a way, force individuals to use it. However, the growth of alternative browsers eventually forced developers to account for more than one browser. It also forced Internet Explorer to start playing nice, and not employ anti-competitive behaviour, as it could no longer break the established standards.

It might be worth asking ourselves how portable a piece of software is when we choose to use it, as well as reflect on the degree to which it locks us into one way of doing things or into a closed ecosystem controlled by a single vendor. And not just the software itself, but also the data it generates.

- Marc