How interoperability is central to the internet's future
Interoperability is easy to overlook. It’s a clunky word for an invisible feature of the internet, a feature most of us don’t realize we rely on hundreds of times a day.
If the internet wasn’t interoperable, you wouldn’t be able to open, read, and reply to this email. People with Gmail couldn’t send an email to someone with Microsoft Outlook. Webpages wouldn’t load across different browsers, and users seeking to explore the far reaches of the internet would be limited to only what’s available on their personal platforms and accounts.
In this newsletter, we’re exploring the principle of internet interoperability. According to Mozilla, it is the internet’s “secret sauce,” but that doesn’t mean it’s an ironclad characteristic of the web. In fact, the internet has become less interoperable in recent years.
// What is interoperability?
Interoperability is like a universal translator for the internet. It refers to the ability of different systems, software, and applications to communicate and work together. It is fundamental to the functioning of an open and decentralized web.
The internet is interoperable through standard protocols that govern how data is transmitted and communicated.
Some commonly known protocols:
- Internet Protocol Suite, known as TCP/IP, is a foundational internet protocol developed in the 1960s and 1970s by the US Department of Defense ARPANET project (its inventors, Vint Cerf and Robert Khan, are considered “the fathers of the internet"). It dictates how data is addressed, transmitted, and received on the internet.
- HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) defines how web browsers should represent certain webpages.
- This newsletter wouldn’t reach your inbox without SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), which helps send and receive emails between two accounts.
Check out a longer list of protocols here.
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Today’s web is dominated by private platforms that disincentivize interoperable communication.
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// Beyond the internet
Interoperability predates and extends far beyond the digital realm. For years, policymakers and technologists have used interoperable standards to limit the power of corporate monopolies, protect consumers, and make connections and transmissions more seamless.
- Thanks to antitrust regulations in 1984, the US phone system became interoperable where hundreds of competitors were required to adhere to shared protocols. Today, that’s enabled a person with Verizon to call a person with AT&T and keep their number, regardless of provider.
- Interoperability is used across government agencies to communicate effectively: from coordinating efforts across different military branches to managing flooding across different municipalities.
- Physical infrastructure, like railroads, relies on interoperable railroad gauges, couplings, and track heights.
// The challenges to interoperability
Interoperable protocols that enabled a decentralized web like TCP/IP, HTTP, and SMTP were foundational to building the internet. But then things changed.
Braxton Woodham, Co-Creator of Project Liberty’s DSNP, explained it like this: “The development of protocols was so rich in the late 80s through the early 90s, and then everything became privatized, and we stopped developing these core protocols.”
In today’s internet, big tech companies like Meta, TikTok, and X are building private applications and platforms—walled off from each other and fully controlled by the company, not the user. One reason is financial: platforms make money by keeping users on their sites.
While much of the internet is still interoperable, today’s web is dominated by private platforms that disincentivize interoperable communication:
- The tweets from a user on X cannot be received and read by an Instagram user.
- The content users generate on TikTok is owned by TikTok. Users can’t take that content with them if they decide to leave a social media platform and upload it onto YouTube.
Where interoperability distributes power, network effects consolidate it. Where open, decentralized protocols give users more control over where and how they communicate online, closed platforms use that power to harvest user data for ads.
According to a 2020 report by New America, interoperability can be a policy lever for a better web. “It has a unique ability to promote and incentivize competition—especially competition between platforms—and can also offer users greater privacy and better control over their personal data generally,” the report said.
// Returning to an interoperable, open web
With greater scrutiny on the consolidated power of big tech, interoperability is a centerpiece of regulation and innovation. Regulators are enforcing interoperability, some platforms are experimenting with it, and new protocols like DSNP are placing it at the heart of their value proposition:
- Under the Digital Markets Act, the EU is enforcing its interoperability provisions with Apple and has required Meta to ensure its WhatsApp and Messenger apps are interoperable with other messaging apps like Apple Messages, Telegram, Signal, and Google Messages. In another example of European regulation to ensure interoperability, in 2022 Apple was forced to eliminate its Lightning connector on its iPhones after regulators decided all smartphones should provide standardized USB charging.
- In the US, the Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching (ACCESS) Act was introduced in Congress in 2021 and 2022 with the intention of mandating interoperability for large tech firms. But it has yet to pass, and there is no federal policy requiring tech platform interoperability.
- Last year, Meta pledged that its new X competitor, Threads, would be interoperable with other decentralized social network sites like Mastodon. They’ve followed through on that promise, so today users on Mastodon and Threads can fully interact with each other (view, follow, post, and reply). An analysis earlier this month in the Washington Post speculated that Meta’s transition to interoperability for Threads represents “a broader strategy of embracing more open approaches in markets where it is fighting dominant incumbents.”
- Project Liberty’s Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP) creates an open marketplace and ecosystem of interoperable apps and services that give users greater voice and choice in their online experience.
The People’s Bid to acquire TikTok would transition TikTok to DSNP via Frequency, a public blockchain that prioritizes interoperability and user privacy. It’s one example of an innovation focused on greater interoperability.
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It’s possible that the next generation of the internet means returning to the internet’s roots and tapping into its original spirit as a decentralized, open, interoperable network—a true internet. But to get there, today’s private, centralized platforms will need to create a way for individual users to regain control of their online experience.
