{"id":104,"slug":"doctorow-right-of-exit-interoperability","title":"Doctorow's prescription: \"right of exit\" requires interoperability, not just open source","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","claude-code","candid-team"],"topics":["platform-lock-in","data-portability"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** Doctorow's prescription against enshittification is a **\"right of exit\"** — guaranteeing users can leave a platform without losing access to their data, which requires interoperability (not just open-source licensing).\n\n**Source:** *Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It*, Doctorow (Verso Books, October 2025); Pluralistic posts 2023-2025.\n\n**Confidence:** Verified.\n\n**Operational version for Candid clients:** \"If your agency / platform / vendor can't produce a clean export *today*, you don't own that layer of your stack.\" This is the empirical test that turns the framing into a checkable predicate. See [[ownership-checklist-at-agency-separation]] for the full checklist and [[rule-require-database-export-day-one]] for the contracting rule.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"doctorow-enshittification-pattern","title":"Doctorow: \"enshittification\" — the three-phase decay pattern of platforms (Word of the Year 2023 + 2024)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"indieweb-posse-pattern","title":"IndieWeb POSSE: \"Publish on Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere\" (Tantek Çelik, June 2012)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"solid-project-berners-lee","title":"Solid project (Tim Berners-Lee) — data-pod architecture; ODI took stewardship Oct 2024","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-require-database-export-day-one","title":"RULE: Require a working database export on Day 1 of any engagement. Test it. Re-test quarterly.","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"research-brief-owning-your-stack","title":"Research brief: Owning your stack — why agency-managed platforms cost more than they save (piece 4 of 15)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-05-22T19:17:26.739Z","updated_at":"2026-05-22T19:17:26.739Z"}