So Are Device-Content Systems Moving Toward Compatibility or Incompatibility?

So now I’ve distinguished between access of public and that of proprietary information, and I’ve determined that the trend towards the use of fee-based portals provide users new and easy ways to access information or services that either they couldn’t access before, or they could access but not as easily as they can by using the Internet.

I’ve also established both that (1) content chases devices and devices chase content and (2) the proliferation of gadgets that can access both public and proprietary information through the Internet should continue to mushroom.

Finally, I’ve established that the increasing dominance of Apple’s ecosystem is creating an increasing urgency for Apple’s competitors to come up with a way to challenge Apple.  This current urgency, together with the expected continued proliferation of gadgets and portals into the future might create the impetus that enables the consortium of Apple’s competitors to successfully establish its own ecosystem.  However, success is not assured, since important players have not yet joined the consortium.  What’s more, the difficulties associated with incompatibilities that have developed even using Google’s open source Android system do not bode well.

With this information in hand, do I think device-content systems are moving towards compatibility or incompatibility?  I think that as the Internet continues to expand and devices and information proliferate, the universe of Internet-enabled device-content systems will end up being partitioned into four categories.

1. Public information, especially that information for which people want to generate as much exposure as possible, will continue to be easily and freely accessible, to the extent that the provision of such information isn’t excessively costly.

2.  Proprietary information accessed by many people (e.g., music, songs, movies, news, books) will evolve towards mostly compatible devices and fee-based systems.  Given the staying power of the Apple ecosystem, first vis-à-vis Microsoft, and now vis-à-vis pretty much everyone else, perhaps there will remain two ecosystems, one for Apple and its allies and one for everybody else.

There is the issue of upgrades.  For example, suppose you buy a traditional version of Spider-Man that you can stream over a handful (or more) of different devices.  Suppose then you upgrade to high-def.  I don’t think you will automatically be able to stream a high-def version of the movie to high-def hardware.  Likewise, if and when 3-D takes hold, I don’t think you will automatically be able to stream a 3-D version of Spider-Man to a 3-D device.  I think the system might evolve to let you pay an upgrade fee for next generation content, if you’ve purchased a previous version.

3.  New and different forms of proprietary information that have relatively little value, such as 99¢ apps, and that is accessed by a relatively few number of users, will evolve towards compatible devices (the Apple ecosystem or the everybody else ecosystem) and fee-based systems.  In particular, providers of fee-based content will not have the incentive to supply content that has little value to each individual user unless they have a large pool of users to draw from.  This will only be the case if gadgets are compatible.

4.  New and different forms of proprietary information that have a relatively large amount of value, even if it is accessed by only a relatively small number of users, will evolve towards incompatible, specialty device, fee-based systems.  It is worth it to users to pay for separate gadgets to access valuable, specialty, proprietary information, especially if the gadgets are tailored to enhance the use of the proprietary information.  So, for example, it’s very reasonable to believe that UPS and FedEx ill continue to operate their own differentiated and proprietary systems of handhelds and tracking information.