Data taken hostage
Contents
Vendor lock in caused hostage data
- Data format being kept closed source (history of: microsoft office formats, adobe acrobat pdf-format, ...)
- Data critically dependent on the structure of the "cloud service". – Especially devious if the service has software tools that do not scale (See: Toyls)
- Companies bankruptcy taking the data down with its "sinking ship"
In this regard the situation has already improved.
At least major centralized platforms (including: google, twitter, ...) by now (2021) provide means for "data takeout"
Does this even happen? Oh yes indeed it does:
Googles former social media platform "Google+" has has gone down.
But it provided an data takeout option. Displaying that data is another matter ...
Looking around a bit more one certainly will be able to find "services" that went down without any data takeout options.
Generally the "everything as a service" (XaaS) trend has strong data hostage taking tendencies.
Be aware of that.
Technically caused hostage data
Niche software (e.g. for special hardware) that comes with its own obscure format.
E.g. Formats of note taking apps requiring a pen input device.
Plus that open format is too complex and too little in use for open source developers to bother to
code up some cross compatibility migration software between formats.
