The political economy of platformed silos: Theorizing data storage reconfigurations in the age of interoperability capitalism

Interoperability has become a prominent topic in contemporary discourses around digital infrastructures in fields as diverse as security, finance, health, and communication. Common to these discourses are two views: first, that interoperability encompasses desiloization, i.e. the breaking down of barriers between disjoint data silos, and second, that interoperability is de facto good for users of digital platforms. This commentary challenges the techno-optimistic narratives often underlying this imaginary of interoperability, instead providing a perspective of the political economy of interoperability. First, it traces the historical emergence of the conceptual coupling between interoperability and data silos in which the latter presents an impediment to the realization of the former. Second, it situates imaginaries of interoperability in the paradigm of platform capitalism, highlighting that already dominant platform companies are prominent proponents of interoperability discourses, expanding what we here refer to as interoperability capitalism. Last, it shows that such platform companies, by advocating for interoperability via desiloization, often produce “platformed silos” that enable them to further entrench their power. We conclude by arguing that questions of political economy ought to remain front and center in studies of the techno-political imaginaries and infrastructures of interoperability.