Why would you want your government to mandate how technology works?
Sounds like a recipe for disaster and the perfect way to stifle innovation
Sounds like a recipe for disaster and the perfect way to stifle innovation
Forcing a specific standard is problematic, but it would be reasonable to ask any communication service to provide a fully documented and public API with features and access equal to the features and access of the official application.
Random nerds make integrations to whatever application/protocol is in vogue, business still gets to have complete freedom in where their take their API and thus their product.
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I would even go as far as to say that every web-service should be machine-consumable in that fashion, but that's beyond the point.
If users don't want that, they should be free not to have that.
However, I think that public services (paid for by taxes) should be open and accessible. That is, the government should mandate certain properties ("it should be open") and not certain implementations ("it should use this specific protocol / app").
Another commenter gave the example of Brazil schools sending parents important information via WhatsApp.
Now I'm not against the schools doing that if it's one of multiple options and if the parents have an actual choice. I think the government should mandate that at least one open choice be made available, without necessarily detailing said choice.
In my view this wouldn't stifle innovation. If you come up with some new communication app that's better than anything else, if it's open and many people pick it up, there's no reason for the schools not to use it instead of the older / inferior option. This would also allow schools to choose one among several open solutions according to their particular needs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsbury_Commitment?wprov=sft...
"the promise of mail delivery [helped] grow the nation and economy instead of serving only existing communities."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Service_Act?wprov=sfti1
Also, private mail exists and it's definitely useful.
Digital messages are usually built on top of the internet (which would have similar problems) and every service can be used across the entire network.
Why would you want a small, self-interested, unaccountable group of private investors to mandate how technology works?
Sounds like a recipe for disaster and the perfect way to stifle innovation
Depending on the particulars of your government, perhaps it looks more appealing now.
If the choice is between being tracked, which results in many things being free (as in beer) with otherwise almost no practical visible consequences for most people (different ads?), or having to pay for each and every service but no tracking, I think you would face a huge backlash if you forced the latter.
A solution could be to have free access if you accept tracking and pay otherwise, but I believe this is illegal under GDPR.
Imagine if Hollywood or TV studios had any saying over Digital TV standards. Streaming would never exist and we would be used to a "pay-per-view" model forever, with mandatory and built-in DRM.
This is not about enforcing how technology works. It just ensuring that no monopoly can occur. Common standards don't stifle innovation, closed ones do.
If your analogy was something about governmental bodies was worse than private entities when pushing for a standard network standard, then you would have a point. But unless I am deeply wrong, TCP/IP, GSM, LTE, DVB, even FM radio and PAL were standards that only became dominant after governmental bodies sanctioned as standards and no one misses AppleTalk or Novell's IDP because of "government meddling".
Even still, the argument is not for killing private protocols or stopping private companies to innovate and develop new technologies. It's "just" that these innovations should be made on top of open standards instead of displacing them. Don't forget that Google Talk and even Facebook's messenger started on top of XMPP. They closed purely for business reasons, not technical ones. Had the FCC told them "do whatever you want with your network and your client, but anyone speaking XMPP should be able to communicate with your users", we wouldn't be in this mess.
It took Congress to mandate open standards and to spell out that healthcare institutions must offer a public APIs to patients. We are only now starting to be able to download health records from hospitals as a result of this despite it being technically possible for decades. In fact there are still many patients that are required to request stacks of DVDs containing their health records, and this is their only option.
Obviously this is more a commentary on how shitty healthcare in the US can be, but also a good example IMO of how sometimes government intervention in technical standards requirements can greatly benefit consumers.