As much as any social, political and economic factor, the standardisation of railway tracks throughout America in the mid 1800s contributed to the creation of a coherent multi-state nation. Communication, mobility and seamless transition were made possible with the advent of trans-national rail. Not just viable businesses, but entire towns and cities were built on the back of the single, consistent gauge railway and the Pacific Railway Act of 1863 that ensured it.
Likewise today, for the creation of successful and innovative business ecosystems within the frontier of the Allternet, it is necessary to build cohesive, interoperable protocols. These allow for creative, useful and experiential devices and services to be developed to run on them.
Protocols must be centred on easy to understand, layman-level classifications of network types and capabilities. Allternet protocols require clear and simple interfacing through APIs, graphical and/or tangible user interfaces (GUIs and TUIs) that give a high degree of flexibility and freedom. Certification can happen in a modular fashion. As with open source technologies, we can certify an element, people can develop it, and we pass that certification on through the system.
These protocols should not be locked to a particular operating system or proprietary environment. It’s crucial to preserve creative possibilities as well as incorporate open frameworks in the design process. Certification and licensing provides attribution for design inheritance (as with Open Product Licences). This degree of openness and simplicity provides for a variety of new business models and services that can be made available to potential content creators and participants.
Data provides transparency. For example, when using Uber, the passenger requesting a ride knows exactly where the cab is, has a clear idea how much the journey will cost and knows the make, model and licence plate of the car as well as what the driver looks like. For drivers, Uber provides data that reports traffic information, the best routes, highlights busy periods and ways in which drivers can maximise their revenue so they have greater agency as well as a clear basis for decision making about their own work.
Stakeholders provide choice. The creators of simple protocols are, metaphorically, laying railway tracks. The stakeholders and content creators build a wide variety of trains and ancillary services. They may create a luxury passenger car or a goods train. However, standardisation of the tracks is important, because otherwise there is no connectivity.
Sharing provides trust. If the track providers do not take too much revenue (if, for instance, they demand less than a quarter of profits generated by their use), then there is room for stakeholders to make money. This not only incentivises creativity and innovation in new uses of those tracks, but also establishes the necessary trust required to invest in building upon that infrastructure.
Transparency, choice and trust encourage participation. The people who take passengers down the tracks are the service providers. If it is made easy to build on those tracks, then anyone can use them. That in turn creates employment – or further entrepreneurship – that also contributes to that ecosystem. In other words, there is an opportunity for monetisation by contributing to the platform.
If, on the other hand, the contributor is not given the opportunity to make a profit or that profit is too small or risky to incentivise participation, then the platform itself will not make a profit. The Allternet provides a context for the creation of a non-exploitative service to both clients and contributors. Stakeholders view their contribution and involvement as a partnership with the platform.
Just as they did with the establishment of the standardised railway, new and unimagined types of businesses can flourish, and new communities can emerge and thrive, enabled by Allternet protocols.