I want my data back!

Once upon a time we were locked by the vendor of the software we used. We lived in the walled gardens. Stay here and be happy with what we provide. Or go away. Use our software or undergo the difficult (sometimes nearly impossible) journey of migration to another piece of software.

Our data was ours, but we cannot understand them without their approval (understand buying their software).

Fortunately, the villages without walls started to pop out. Free software, open source. We can be free again. Living in these villages, some of us were ready to accept some big or small inconveniences like dealing with messengers who did not speak any other language than theirs and do not provide any vocabulary. Closed data format, the guesswork of proper export/import and pain in exchanging files were the cons, but things started to change for better.

Or at least we thought so.

King is dead, long live The King!

We welcome online services. And we use them daily for more and more tasks. We like them a lot. So much pain disappeared. But the word “software” in the SaaS acronym should warn us.

We give them our data and we expect the services to work the way we want. But because our world is complicated and no one can do everything, we want the data to be exchanged. To be available to other services we want to use. Or we just want to send them to someone else.

You may say: Relax — there are APIs and the format of the data exchange is specified. Yes, it’s true, but… there are at least three bumps on this road.

One minor — the data format is theirs, not yours. You cannot specify the way you want your data. But transcoding can make this, you say. Ok, you transcoding guru, you can, but my sister can not.

Second bump is subtle but important — you depend on their UI/UX. Thay may have excellent service, but you do not like their interface. Or you like text editor to create your data but how to sync this data to them? If you want to create new data “your way”, you need to do a lot of extra steps. Write something that communicate with API or patch different services together with some tool available (excellent tools like Zapier, IFTTT etc.). Not easy, but doable. Again — thanks to these “gluing” services, it can be done by (nearly) everyone (understand: everyone who has at least advanced technical skills).

The last bump is the most serious one. You depend on what that “service” exposes in an API. Remember walled garden? And what is available (and how) may change completely at their will. Do you think that it doesn’t happen often? Last example is changes in Linkedin API. Or… How many independent developers and services were forced to end their operations in the days when twitter was growing from indie company to big one and was changing their API and rules? They were not the only one.

Do not take me wrong — I do not complain against them because they do what is best for them. It is usually “free”. So, how can we complain?

I just do not share the vision that I’ll spread my data to many services online. Some documents there, my photos here, my travel itinerary elsewhere. Uploading and shuffling my files back and forth.

Is there any alternative?

Or a vision of better solution? Does anybody want something else? Does anybody see the threat of “walled API’s garden”? I think somebody cares asks questions (one example here).

I’m sure a lot of ideas are circulating here and there. I have one, too. It is based around owning my data instead of begging someone to give me my data. I’m trying to make the clear boundary of data, services, UI and UX. And why companies like Dropbox should lead the trend.

More to come, soon.