March 26, 2026
Break the wall, keep your followers
Cory Doctorow: Interoperability Can Save the Open Web
Doctorow says “open the gates” — commenters demand a Right to Exit and clap back with real-world proof
TLDR: Cory Doctorow argues platforms should be forced to connect so users can take their data and followers anywhere. Commenters split: some demand a “Right to Exit” and government mandates like in healthcare, while others push self‑hosted freedom—everyone agrees this could shift power from tech giants back to users.
Author Cory Doctorow is back with a big swing: make the internet’s giants play nice by law, so apps and sites connect like LEGO. He calls it interoperability—letting you take your friends list, posts, and messages anywhere. The crowd? Fired up. One commenter pitched a simple rule for social apps: end-to-end feeds (see what you follow, not what the algorithm wants) plus a bold Right to Exit so you can walk out of Twitter without losing your followers. “Imagine drag‑and‑drop for your social life,” joked one user.
But the drama’s in the details. A healthcare veteran rolled in with receipts: interoperability only happened when the government forced it, complete with “patients own their data” rules and shared formats. Translation: nice ideals don’t move Big Tech—mandates do. Cue the libertarian counterpunch: a self-hosting diehard begged for tools that are “better, unregulated, and free,” swearing off backdoors, age checks, and surveillance. The thread turned into regulators vs. renegades real fast.
Meanwhile, an AI twist: one voice cheered that a local, file-system AI tool beat a closed app—a near miss, they say, from a future where we’d be begging for API crumbs. The meme-ification followed: “Ctrl+C your followers, Alt+F4 the walled gardens.” Doctorow lit the match; the comments brought the fireworks.
Key Points
- •Cory Doctorow’s book argues Big Tech dominance is sustained by legal barriers rather than engineering constraints.
- •He proposes enforcing interoperability to dismantle walled gardens and promote a more democratic Internet.
- •Doctorow cites the “curse of bigness,” asserting concentrated firms tend to compromise user rights when competition is weak.
- •He distinguishes voluntary/mandatory standards, indifferent compatibility, and adversarial interoperability (“comcom”).
- •A hypothetical example likens Apple reverse-engineering Microsoft Office to build iWork, illustrating adversarial interoperability that can lower switching costs.