SQUABBLES IN THE APPs SANDBOX
(….where cross-compatibility is now an oxymoronic concept)

It’s a jungle out there, in high-tech land, where only business carnivores roam and herbivores becomes someone else’s breakfast….or lunch….or dinner.

Much like little kids squabbling in their sandbox over who should share what, or who should be allowed to share or play with whom, the current conflicts between the denizens of that high-tech land….Twitter…Instagram….Facebook….Linkedin, et al, have all the characteristics of childish refusals to….share.

Which is ironic, since all of their –app’s- were conceived as the means for doing…just that. But, apparently, the idea of cross-compatibility for that purpose has now become an oxymoronic concept, and the old-fashioned dog-in-the-manger philosophy of doing business is, once again, de rigeur.

None of this is new, of course. The urge to monopolize or dominate markets and market share has always been around (and still is), with its guiding principles being:

a)    If you can’t beat the competition with superior quality of product or excellence of service….buy them out!

b)    If you can’t buy them out, or afford to, then restrict their compatibility with you own stuff….and squeeze them out instead!

c)    Whenever possible get the rules changed to favor you over them. From a purely cold-blooded ROI perspective, spending money to influence a regulator or legislator….or two…or three….or more, is probably more cost-effective than either a) or b) above!

In the end of course all of these contentious pissing contests are useless and do no one any good….least of all us, the consumers, who are after all…the market. So maybe it’s time we consumers told them all to knock it off, and get back to doing what the whole idea was for having an Internet in the first place. That is, giving us the means to share whatever we wanted to share (no matter how inane the content), with whomever we wanted, in whatever manner we wanted, whenever we wanted, and from whatever platform we wanted.

As for me, because I don’t “tweet”, “text”, or “faceoff” on the Net….I don’t really care. Why would I want to “share” anything with perfectly unknown even anonymous strangers? My friends all have my number….and know where I live, and most, also know how to make and read smoke signals.

That….works just as well for me!

CENTURION