Technology

I like Doctorow, and these point are valid. I just don’t see the American government doing anything to benefit the people, regardless of left or right orientation. Most Americans want abortion access and reasonable restrictions on gun sales; I can’t imagine any candidates, local or federal doing little more than making empty promises on these subjects. Even Obama care is a hugely compromised husk of reasonable healthcare for all, and you still have republicans clamoring to dismantle it.

I hate to be pessimistic, but I don’t think any American politician would take on this topic.

Another way to encourage interoperability is to use the government to hold out a carrot in addition to the stick. Through government procurement laws, governments could require any company providing a product or service to the government to not interfere with interoperability. President Lincoln required standard tooling for bullets and rifles during the Civil War, so there’s a long history of requiring this already. If companies don’t want to play nice, they’ll lose out on some lucrative contracts, “but no one forces a tech company to do business with the federal government.”

That's actually a very interesting idea. This benefits the govt as much as anyone else too. It reduces switching costs for govt tech.

This is nice and all but any solution requires a government captured by capital to work against capital feels as likely to work as thoughts and prayers.

Friendly reminder: Dotorow's wife is a director of a Disney subsidiary highly likely to be involved with DRM.

Ms Taylor is now the Director, StudioLab at The Walt Disney Studios. In that role she is responsible for ensuring that Disney continues to invest in the intersection between online tech and content distribution.