We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

> In this context this would mean having the ability and documentation to build or install alternative operating systems on this hardware

It doesn't work. Everything from banks to Netflix and others are slowly edging out anything where they can't fully verify the chain of control to an entity they can have a legal or contractual relationship with. To be clear, this is fundamental, not incidental. You can't run your own operating system because it's not in Netflix's financial interest for you to do so. Or your banks, or your government. They all benefit from you not having control, so you can't.

This is why it's so important to defend the real principles here not just the technical artefacts of them. Netflix shouldn't be able to insist on a particular type of DRM for me to receive their service. Governments shouldn't be able to prevent me from end to end encrypting things. I should be able to opt into all this if I want more security, but it can't be mandatory. However all of these things are not technical, they are principles and rights that we have to argue for.

What I like about your comment is that it points out that all technical work-arounds are moot if people as a whole are not willing to stand up with pitchforks and torches to defend their freedoms. It will always come down to that. A handful of tech-savvy users with rooted devices and open-source software will not make a difference to the giant crushing machine that is the system.

And I'm afraid most of us are part of the system, rage-clicking away most of our days, distracted, jaded perhaps, like it historically has always been.

Only competition can provide a solution. We have lost sight of this principle even though all Western democracies are built on the idea of separation of powers, and making it hard for any one faction of elites to gain full control and ruin things for everyone else. Make them fight with each other, let them get a piece of the pie, but never all of it. That's why we have multiple branches of government, multiple parties etc. That's why we have markets with many firms instead of monopolies.

There has never been a utopian past and there will never be a utopian future. The past was riddled with despotism and many things that the average man or woman today would consider horrific. The basic principle of democratic society is to prevent those things from recurring by pitting elite factions against each other. Similarly business elites who wield high technology to gain their wealth must also compete and if there is any sign of them cooperating too closely for too long, we need to break them up or shut them down.

When Apple and Google agree, cooperate, and adopt the same policies - we are all doomed. It must never happen and we must furthermore break them up if they try, which they are now doing.

In fact true competition is only possible via open standards, protocols and technology stacks.

We need agreement to ensure the large corporations adhere to these.

This doesn't seem right to me. It is often in companies' best interests to adopt standards, but that is because it allows them both to have an optimized supply chain.

Car manufacturers today have a lot of standards that I expect would make competition from any new contenders harder not easier. Tesla would be an example of that, they did survive but the industry thought it was never going to work precisely because of all the standards and regulations required.

On the other hand, early car manufacturers didn't have standards and shared technology stacks. At that time new car makers popped up everywhere and we had a ton of competition in the space.

Open standards are good for the consumer and good for any features that require interoperability. It has nothing to do with competition though.

Sorry, but you're incorrect.

If a particular product is tied to a specific proprietary tech stack, then the consumer is also tied to specific suppliers. This is known as vendor lock in.

Microsoft used this approach with Internet Explorer back in the old days; ensuring that it provided proprietary elements and implementation, that would encourage developers to provide websites that only functioned using their browser.

Open standards allow choice.

That can be one aspect of it, though I would argue that doesn't mean open standards are always better for competition.

I think you're also assuming the only competition that matters is long term. In the short term the potential for locking users into your own ecosystem can incentivize short term competition.

Long term competition seems like a good goal, but that assumption wasn't part of it at the beginning of this chain.

> that doesn't mean open standards are always better for competition

Yes, they are. Show us a counter-example.

The web is open and is famously very competitive. We have three whole browser engines and only two of them are implemented by for-profit corporations whose valuations have 13 digits. I mean other ones exist, but the average modern developer claims it's your fault when something doesn't work because you use firefox or safari and also demands the browser rewrap all the capabilities the operating system already provides for you because they can't be assed to do the work of meeting users where they are.

In a world with over 3 billion people we have 'three whole browser engines'.

I don't want to be mean, but this isn't a great counterpoint.

I'm not sure what the number of people in the world has to do with whether an open standard does or doesn't promote innovation. The user asked for a case where an open standard didn't do that and I provided one. Whether you think it's a great counterpoint is entirely irrelevant to me.

But browser engines are entirely functional based on open standards!!!!!

This is the core proposition!

The benefit of open standards here, is to the consumers of these standards .. not the engines.

Open standards allow the consumers (websites / apps) to be able to benefit.

The presumption that started this thread is that open standards are always good for competition. I think browsers are a good counter example where open standards led to three browser vendors, we have less competition rather than more.

Without open standards, we would need to pick a browser and provide for it.

If we needed to support another browser we'd need to provide a new solution built to its specification.

Open standards have allowed the possibility of multiple browser vendors, without making the life of browser consumers (i.e. developers and organisations providing apps and sites) a living hell.

Without this, we'd be providing apps and sites for a proprietary system (e.g. Macromedia Flash back in ancient history).

Furthermore, when Flash had cornered a market, it had absolutely no competition at all. A complete monopoly on that segment of the market.

It took Steve Jobs and Apple to destroy it, but that's a different story.

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The reasoning for only three engines, isn't the fault of open standards.

There are many elements of our economic system that prevent competition. Open standards is not one of them.

Browser engines are extremely difficult to start today because of the extensive, complicated, and ever growing list of specifications.

We had a web before open standards. It wasn't the best user experience and each browser was somewhat of a walled garden, but there was heavy competition in the space.

It was a literal hellscape before open standards.

I imagine there's most likely a subset of the population who believe that open standards are aligned conceptually to regulation, and that any form of regulation in a free market is wrong.

This subset of the population is misguided at best, and delusional at worst.

Open standards are essential.

Did that hellacape include more competition between companies building web browsers?