Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee's Solid, and Me

Yeah but doesn't that create a problem, vendor lock-in.

Let's imagine we managed to separate data into 2 parts (which I suppose pretty hard), content and meta-data ( by meta i mean service specific information )

Let's say, if I label an email in gmail, it is meta (service specific data), should gmail store this in my pod?

- if gmail will store this on their data center, it would lead to vendor lock in. - if gmail will store this in my pod, in a service specific container. Can they use their own spec? Or will they store this with data with extensions ( XMPP all over again )

Now imagine they chose the second one, I migrated to smail (imagine they decided to go for folders instead of labels), do they have to do some migration on my data? What if I go back to gmail again? Or I decide to use gmail one day, smail another?

Tbh email is the most easiest situation here, as it has some kind of global standard, Twitch vs Youtube case would be more complicated.

Problem with their approach is that their marketing pitch is all wrong.

There is no demand for what they are selling because there is no value in what they are selling. The value comes from network effect and at the beginning there is no value, just cost. Mainstream users don't care and companies either don't care or don't like of that kind of talk.

Inrupt should start with completely different sales pitch and product idea. They should delay the privacy talk and user owned data until they are bigger.

Start with smaller IoT companies. Provide and market actual services they want. Mostly they want automatic data management, cloud services on cheap. They want to avoid any EU privacy hassles. Handle all that, I18n and internet user interfaces for them. Provide mobile and desktop clients. Just provide simple apis and ready made interfaces for companies to use.

Once the protocol and pods become normal users start to discover that they own the data and third party uses and products for that data may emerge.

and 'protocol' is somehow going to make that better? I don't think that's possible. users have never had to think about more than paths.

lets give them semantics to map file-systems to applications, [perhaps] in the same way a functional package manager would 'give' you/the os access to the right versions of those applications.

I imagined it more like a schemaless database. Apps could save and use whatever data in your pod without any protocol changes.

> i can move my email data to another provider, but about my filters? On other tiny stuff that gmail builds on email

The other provider would provide those integrations, or a superior competitor will.

> Now all other chat apps supporting solid, has to follow my lead?

I don't think there is any mandatory integration. I think apps can choose the level of integration they implement. Maybe a feature of your app is that it purposely removes/ignores stickers, so you don't integrate. Another app may be all about stickers and even lets you augment and modify them, so it integrates heavily.

All that is data, so those, too, could be stored in your Pod and brought along with you.

> Should I ask solid to update protocol for this

No, interoperability can be achieved through your data model, which is yours to decide - Solid doesn't dictate the shape of your data. But as you noted, only competing apps using the same data model will be interoperable - stickers won't suddenly appear without the developer implementating them.

(Disclosure: I also work for Inrupt, but views are my own.)