> or, have mandated open apis that _force_ products to integrate.

Yep, I mostly agree. Except, defining APIs is pretty much the realm of software engineering more than regulations.

I mean, we don't want to have regulations that essentially say: "all companies selling platforms (god knows how we're going to accurately define what a platform is; let's ignore that for now) must support development against open apis such as HTML 5" and then realize that 5 years later nobody wants to write apps in HTML 5 but the shiny new thing called Flash that Adobe has developed. (My memory fails me; Flash is the hot new thing right? :P)

Anyways, it feels like society has reached a point where regulators need software skills if they're going to tackle societal impact of big tech. We need super smart folks from software _also_ become super smart folks in law and become members of congress. :D Or, maybe we need congress to sign up for #learntocode. Cross-functional skills FTW!

Building/construction regulation, electrical appliances code and compatibility etc works in real life. What makes software any different? It's an end result that regulators can mandate.

For example, the regulator can mandate that if you have an app that you sell (SaaS or not), you must also provide a way to export the data out in a machine readable, documented format.

Regulators can mandate that your app must have an api to insert compatible data into your app (like embedding). Regulators can mandate that your app must have an api to make it possible to embed into another app, or some other requirement.

It's up to society to make these regulations, just like how society mandates building safety code, electrical safety code etc. Companies won't do this willingly of course, but they can if their competition is also forced to (level playing field).

> That's what the web is today

Are you suggesting that the web is the way it is today because benevolent governments dictated it be so? Do you have any links about this?

My impression is that most of the open standards upon which the web is based such as HTML, HTTP, IP, etc. are mostly government funded either through academia, CERN, military, etc.

Things are a little different now that private industry is funding most of this stuff

Agree this is a good solution, open apis to avoid monopoly

The problem with common APIs is that they are a lowest common denominator. I deal with this all the time with Microsoft's Bot Framework - which is somewhat shitty open protocol for writing chat bots that plug into a whole range of messaging platforms, including Teams and Slack. It's functional, more or less, but it by necessity has to target the lowest common set of capabilities of the services it plugs into, and that makes it clunky as hell. And you still end up having to write a bunch of bodgy platform-specific code to get it to do anything interesting.

Yes but at least you are allowed to write that bodgy code. In some people's ideal world such APIs would be hidden behind DRM, chatbots only physically possible with godzilla's permission.

Sadly some websites forbids to post URL. IMO this is breaking the web.

Not apis, protocols preferably.

API and protocols can be used interchangably in this case.

Agree wholeheartedly although maybe not on the IBM part. But all these big tech firms are really closing up technology and avoiding open apis and competition with other players.