Andy Oram (@praxagora on Twitter) just pointed to my attention what Steven Feldman asked Friday: #OpenData – who profits?.Thanks Andy!
This week I have a couple of urgent deadlines, and there are certainly many others who will provide more complete and articulate answers to the questions Feldman asks. Here I only want to write down a few notes, more as a public reminder for me to come back to this when I have more time, to think more seriously about it, and as a really quick draft of points to consider for a real answer and study, than as anything else.
In my humble opinion, the economic reasons to Open Data are (much) more:
- helping existing and future businesses whose mission is NOT to generate data or data-services but using data to do something else entirely, which has little or nothing to do with ICT or data-services per se.
- helping businesses and private citizens to save money. Just consider public transportation and the price of gas these days. Feldman “just can’t see colossal opportunities in bus departures, live train info…”. probably there is little money to be made in providing those data or aggregating them online. First, even if the opportunities aren’t colossal, they’re great anyway, in this period. Second, and above all, the money that people can save if they always know how to move quickly to get the best deal on something, drive aroung traffic accidens or generally minding their own business, is huge.
- reduce the costs of many government offices. If office A doesn’t have anymore to pay (with money or time spent to ask permission, re-entry data in incompatible systems etc…) for data from office B, I do make money (eventually, at least) as a taxpayer.
- in money saved not to guard data that doesn’t need guards, see what Eaves wrote a few months ago about the cost of FOIA requests pointing towards untolerable levels
Another point I’d make is that what Feldman says is partly due to the fact that to get the most benefits what should be open is not only government data. Mixing those with data that are or should be public but aren’t open, e.g. corporate data, can help to make or save a lot of money, in and out government. Enough for now, hope to come back to this soon.
Hi, Marco!
These are indeed good points. Working inside government, I can say that quite a sum of money is wasted in waiting for permission and because of data impedance mismatches because of not having interoperable systems. Open data certainly helps a lot with government efficiency, and we already received comments from people in other offices using the data we opened, complimenting us for having done just that.
I can see for now two more opportunities for profit on open data:
If e-procurement data is opened. When this data is not locked into a closed web application, but open, it broadens the possibility that companies will find bids they’re more apt to apply for and government will get cheaper deals. So companies profit for not missing bids and government (and thus, taxpayers) profit by saving money on procurement.
Also, open government data increases transparency. Having more eyes watching means citizens and journalists might catch cases of corruption that would otherwise be missed by the regular inspection offices. Thus, more money saved by the government and taxpayers do profit.
BTW, I like that you have called into view the often overlooked fact that the opportunities for open data lie not only in government data, but in the private sector as well. This is much relevant to this discussion because for open private sector data to begin happening, companies need first and foremost to start realizing what profit opening up their own data would mean for themselves. So it’s important that we, as activists, start to bring up the discussions on that front as well.