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date = 2025-01-20
title = "ecosystems"
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> an ecosystem is a biological system consisting of a community of living organisms, their habitat, and the system of connections that facilitates the exchange of matter and energy between them.

i really dislike how modern marketing hacks from large corporations are twisting the word ecosystem. originally, the word means the co-existence of several independent actors who together create an environment and maintain a balance within it

the combinations of "airpods + iphone," "yandex taxi + yandex maps," "mts service + something else," or "a 3d printer + its software" — all of this is, at best, vertical integration, and at worst, a blatant attempt to lock you into a manufacturer and thus avoid the need to compete. but it is definitely not an ecosystem in the sense of a system of independent actors

for comparison, let me give you examples of real digital ecosystems. the windows ecosystem (or macos/other oses) as a combination of the operating system with all its applications, plugins, user settings, accessories, and so on. in this case, we truly have a whole set of independent actors capable of compensating for each other's shortcomings (for example, an application that sets a video as a desktop wallpaper, adapting the ecosystem to the absence of such a feature in its central product)

another example: the ecosystem of hdmi devices, as the collection of everything that can be connected to each other using it. or consider this: the smartphone ecosystem, as the aggregate of phone manufacturers, accessories, spare parts, modifications, the application ecosystem, repair technicians, and many others

here, by the way, we also encounter concepts like ecosystem control and openness. good examples of attempts at control include apple's endless efforts to prohibit third-party repairs of its devices, bambu lab's recent disabling of the api in its 3d printers, nintendo's fight against anything that resembles fun outside of what is "permitted," and much, much more. of course, no matter what the marketing hacks invent or tell you, for the end user (as well as for all other participants in the ecosystem), such actions are harmful 99.99% of the time

how can one avoid situations of unreasonably high control over ecosystems? the most reliable option is to use what can be called open ecosystems. these are ecosystems formed around an open standard—that is, a standard whose creators guarantee the full right to use it without asking for permission, and who have no control over what supports it. in most cases, openness is achieved through specific licenses under which the standard is distributed

a good example of an open ecosystem is bluetooth. it (unlike the aforementioned hdmi, by the way) is completely open, and its developers allow everyone to use it without needing to ask for permission. consequently, even if its developers go crazy tomorrow and release a new version with something strange in it, everyone will just continue to use the old version

another obvious example is the linux ecosystem, which consists of hundreds and hundreds of independent projects distributed under free licenses that guarantee users a certain set of freedoms, including the freedom to study the code, modify it, and distribute modified versions

i'll quickly note that open ecosystems also have the ability to easily integrate with other ecosystems, making life easier for everyone. for example, the linux ecosystem is part of the posix ecosystem, and the ai development ecosystem is part of the linux one

conclusion: remember that when you hear the word ecosystem, it's more likely that someone is just trying to lock you into their company and limit your choices, because real ecosystems rarely have millions of dollars to spend on marketing hacks