Emerging Technology
day one project

Open Interface & Interoperability Standards for an Open and Transparent Digital Platform Marketplace

02.16.21 | 2 min read | Text by Thyaga Nandagopal

Summary

The United States leads the world in the market share – and ‘mindshare’ – of massive digital platforms in domains such as advertising, search, social media, e-commerce, and financial technologies. Each of these digital domains features one or two dominant market players who have become big through the ‘network effect,’ wherein large volumes of customer activity provide data inputs to make these platforms work even better. However, the gains that big players enjoy from the network effect often come at the expense of the platform’s customers. The network effect is further amplified by platform lock-in, whereby new platforms are unable to interoperate with existing market players. A more serious risk manifests when the dominant platform provider provides the same services as that of businesses using the platform, thus becoming a competitor with a built-in information advantage. This prevents new entrants to the market from growing big, limiting the choices available to consumers and creating the conditions for harmful monopolies to emerge.

Therefore, the Biden-Harris Administration should advocate for legislation and enact policies designed to bring openness and transparency into the digital platforms marketplace. A key aspect of such policies would be to require a set of interoperability standards for large digital platforms. Another would be to require open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that allow customers (end-users as well as businesses) to seamlessly take their data with them to competitors. These actions will unleash greater competition in the digital marketplaces that are becoming the mainstay of the US economy and increase transparency, choice and opportunities that the US consumer and businesses can benefit from.

publications
See all publications
Emerging Technology
day one project
Policy Memo
In Honor of Patient Safety Day, Four Recommendations to Improve Healthcare Outcomes

Most patient safety challenges are not really captured and there are not enough tools to empower clinicians to improve. Here are four proposals for improving patient safety that are worthy of attention and action.

09.17.25 | 7 min read
read more
Emerging Technology
day one project
Policy Memo
ASTRA: An American Space Transformation Regulatory Act

If space is there, and if we are going to climb it, then regulatory reform must be a challenge that we are willing to accept, something that we are unwilling to postpone, for a competition that we intend to win.

09.02.25 | 16 min read
read more
Emerging Technology
Blog
Creating A Vision and Setting Course for the Science and Technology Ecosystem of 2050

To better understand what might drive the way we live, learn, and work in 2050, we’re asking the community to share their expertise and thoughts about how key factors like research and development infrastructure and automation will shape the trajectory of the ecosystem.

08.06.25 | 4 min read
read more
Emerging Technology
Blog
Why Listening Matters for Moonshot Programs: ARPA-I’s National Tour

Recognizing the power of the national transportation infrastructure expert community and its distributed expertise, ARPA-I took a different route that would instead bring the full collective brainpower to bear around appropriately ambitious ideas.

08.05.25 | 7 min read
read more