Some of the more disappointing moments I've had in the tech world is when a company only adopts a consumer-friendly methodology when someone asks them to. We saw it with Europe's introduction of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which aimed to make a fairer market for all. Companies who wished to continue operating in Europe adapted their services to avoid being fined, but the changes they made didn't arrive in other countries like the US. The writing on the wall was clear; the big companies would only adopt these fairer practices if there was an active threat of punishment forcing them to do so.

So you can imagine how I felt when I heard the news that the Data Transfer Initiative finished its job of allowing people to move between Google Photos and iCloud Photos without any additional apps. It was great that it finally happened, but sad that it had to happen due to someone else prodding them to do so. So, here's why the Data Transfer Initiative has done what iOS and Android should have allowed from the beginning - plus a surprising discovery I made while digging deeper.

People should never feel like a service is holding their precious media hostage

Our media is more important now than ever

Back when phones were a little more rudimentary, moving operating systems didn't really mean a huge deal. You could just manually transfer your photos over to your new phone - that is if you really felt your photos were worth keeping. The cameras weren't so great on them after all.

But now we're in an age where you could have been married to Android or iOS for over a decade now. Years upon years of memories, tucked away within a cloud, packed full of media, some of which came from phones that have long since gone kaput and been recycled. Moving all of that from one operating system to another is like the digital equivalent of moving home; a pain at best, and too strenuous to consider at worst.

The thing is, that's just what companies want. The more obstacles people face when swapping to a rival product, the more likely people will decide not to bother and stick with what they have. Which is why it was so good that the Data Transfer Initiative could help develop the tools to make the process a ton easier.

People's data should go where the people want it to go

It shouldn't really be an issue

It seems that, if left to their own devices, companies will use our own data against us. It will either make it hard for us to get our own data, or make it difficult to move it to a rival service. But that's just what it is - our data. If we want to move it to another operating system, we should have the ability to do that without having to choose between undergoing the process of manually moving everything or abandoning it all. Companies should really allow us the freedom of our own data; unfortunately, it's far more profitable for them not to offer that option.

Thats why I respect what the Data Transfer Initiative is doing. It understands that people's data should be fluid, bending to the needs of the user instead of the other way around. So, I did a little more research on the company, and I was stunned to see that this wasn't Google's and Apple's first rodeo with them:

DTI’s ancestor, the Data Transfer Project, was created in 2018 as an industry collaboration with a mission of enabling users to complete simple, fast, and secure data transfers directly between services. Since its creation, the project has built an open source technology framework that powers direct data transfer features within Google Takeout, Facebook’s Transfer your Information, and Apple’s Data and Privacy page, as well as software libraries that connect to over a dozen additional services.

That's a lot of important tools that allow the user to see and transfer their own data! I personally use Google Takeout to see what the online web giant knows about me, so seeing that it was a product of the Data Transfer Initiative made me respect them even more - and companies a little less.

We shouldn't need the Data Transfer Initiative - but I'm glad we have it

Honestly, I could talk endlessly about how companies keep our data hostage and how they should work together to allow us the freedom of choice, but we all know that the counter-argument for everything I say will boil down to "but it makes them money." And it's pretty saddening that companies will only do what's right for the consumer if an external force pressures them into doing it. As such, I don't really see big tech companies having a moment of compassion and making life easier for those who wish to move their data around. And because of that, I've gotten a newfound respect for those who fight and work for us to have the data freedoms we enjoy today.