A closed platform, walled garden, or closed ecosystem is a
software system
A software system is a system of intercommunicating components based on software forming part of a computer system (a combination of hardware and software). It "consists of a number of separate programs, configuration files, which are used to se ...
wherein the carrier or service provider has control over
applications
Application may refer to:
Mathematics and computing
* Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks
** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...
,
content
Content or contents may refer to:
Media
* Content (media), information or experience provided to audience or end-users by publishers or media producers
** Content industry, an umbrella term that encompasses companies owning and providing mas ...
, and/or
media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...
, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applicants or content. This is in contrast to an
open platform
In computing, an open platform describes a software system which is based on open standards, such as published and fully documented external application programming interfaces (API) that allow using the software to function in other ways than the o ...
, wherein consumers generally have unrestricted access to applications and content.
Overview
For example, in
telecommunications
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
, the services and applications accessible on a cell phone on any given
wireless
Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...
device were formerly tightly controlled by the
mobile operator
A mobile network operator (MNO), also known as a wireless service provider, wireless carrier, cellular company, or mobile network carrier, is a provider of wireless communications services that owns or controls all the elements necessary to sell ...
s. The operators limited the applications and developers that were available on users' home portals and home pages. Thus, a service provider might restrict user access to users whose account exhausted the pre-paid money on their account. This has long been a central issue constraining the telecommunications sector, as developers face huge hurdles in making their applications available to end-users.
In a more extreme example, the regulated 1970s American telephone system,
Bell
A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inter ...
, owned all the hardware (including all phones) and had indirect control over the information sent through their infrastructure. It was an open government-sanctioned
natural monopoly
A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming adv ...
regulated by the
Communications Act of 1934
The Communications Act of 1934 is a United States federal law signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 19, 1934 and codified as Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code, et seq. The Act replaced the Federal Radio Commission with ...
. However, in the landmark case ''
Hush-A-Phone v. United States
''Hush-A-Phone v. United States'', 238 F.2d 266 (D.C. Cir. 1956) was a seminal ruling in United States telecommunications decided by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hush-A-Phone Corporation marketed a small, cup-like device which mounted on th ...
'', Bell unsuccessfully sued a company producing plastic telephone attachments.
More generally, a walled garden can refer to a closed or exclusive set of information services provided for users. Similar to a real
walled garden
A walled garden is a garden enclosed by high walls, especially when this is done for horticultural rather than security purposes, although originally all gardens may have been enclosed for protection from animal or human intruders. In temperate c ...
, a user is unable to escape this closed environment except through the designated entry/exit points or if the walls are removed.
Aspects
A 2008
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...
working paper, entitled "Opening Platforms: How, When and Why?", differentiated a platform's openness/closedness by four aspects and gave example platforms:
Examples
Some examples of walled gardens include:
*In the 1990s,
AOL
AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017â ...
developed what later was called its "walled garden"
model of service.
The idea was to preferentially offer sponsored content to users when possible.
During this period,
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
paid to provide sports content,
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
paid to provide news, and
1-800-Flowers
1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. is a floral and foods gift retailer and distribution company in the United States. The company's focus, except for Mother's Day and Valentine's Day, is on gift baskets. They also use the name ''1-800-Baskets.com''. Their ...
paid to be the default florist for anyone seeking one.
This strategy became AOL's first good method for selling advertisements.
In its time, this method was highly profitable to AOL.
*
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
's
Kindle line of
eReader
An e-reader, also called an e-book reader or e-book device, is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals.
Any device that can display text on a screen may act as an e-read ...
s. As an October 2011 ''
Business Insider
''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...
'' article, entitled "How Amazon Makes Money From The Kindle" observes: "Amazon's Kindle is no longer just a product: It's a whole ecosystem." Moreover, as ''Business Insider'' noted "The Kindle ecosystem is also Amazon's fastest-growing product and could account for more than 10% of the company's revenue next year."
*
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
and other mobile devices, which are restricted to running pre-approved applications from a
digital distribution
Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content (media), content such as Sound recording and reproductio ...
service.
*
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...
's
Nook devices. In late December 2011, B&N began pushing the automatic,
over-the-air firmware update 1.4.1 to Nook Tablets that removed users' ability to gain
root access
In computing, the superuser is a special user account used for system administration. Depending on the operating system (OS), the actual name of this account might be root, administrator, admin or supervisor. In some cases, the actual name of th ...
to the device and the ability to
sideload
Sideloading describes the process of File transfer, transferring files between two local devices, in particular between a personal computer and a mobile device such as a mobile phone, smartphone, Personal digital assistant, PDA, Tablet computer, ...
applications from sources other than the official Barnes and Noble NOOK Store (without
modding
''Modding'' is a slang expression derived from the English verb " to modify". The term refers to modification of hardware, software, or anything else, to perform a function not originally intended by the designer, or to achieve bespoke specific ...
).
Nook HD
The Nook HD and Nook HD+ are the third generation of Nook's line of color tablet e-reader/media players by Barnes & Noble for using their copy restricted (DRM) proprietary files, or other files. They are the successors to the Nook Tablet and b ...
devices were similarly "closed", until May 2013, when BN opened its ecosystem somewhat by permitting users to install the Google
Play Store
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating syst ...
and the various
Android apps offered there, including those of rivals, such as
Audible.com
Audible is an American online audiobook and podcast service that allows users to purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of spoken word content. This content can be purchased individually or under a subscription model where the user receiv ...
,
ComiXology
Iconology Inc., d/b/a ComiXology (styled comiXology), is a cloud-based digital distribution platform for comics owned by Amazon, with over 200 million comic downloads . It offers a selection of more than 100,000 comic books, graphic novels, and ...
, Kindle,
Kobo
Kobo may refer to:
Places
* Kobo (woreda), a district in Ethiopia
** Kobo, Ethiopia, a town
* KÅbo Dam, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan
* Mount KÅbÅ, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
People First name
* KÅbÅ Abe (1924–1993), pseudonym of Japanese w ...
, and Google itself.
* The
Encrypted Media Extensions
Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) is a W3C specification for providing a communication channel between web browsers and the Content Decryption Module (CDM) software which implements digital rights management (DRM). This allows the use of HTML5 vide ...
specification provides
API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...
s to control playback of encrypted content. This is part of the
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working to ...
's web standards and was authored by members working from
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
and
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
.
*
Kwangmyong, the
national intranet
A national intranet is an Internet protocol-based walled garden network maintained by a nation state as a national substitute for the global Internet, with the aim of controlling and monitoring the communications of its inhabitants, as well as r ...
service that operates in North Korea. It operates as a "walled garden" network, as no information is permitted to enter the network without government approval.
*
Verizon Wireless
Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divi ...
'
CDMA
Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communication ...
network and policies effectively prohibiting
activation of non-Verizon sanctioned devices on their network. Verizon Wireless is frequently noted (and often criticized) for this practice.
*
Permissioned blockchains have been called the “walled gardens†of 2017.
*
Video game console
A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally placed i ...
s have a long history of walled gardens, with developers needing to purchase licences to develop for the platform, and, in some cases, needing editorial approval from the console manufacturer prior to publishing games.
*
Super-app
A super-app (also written as super app or superapp) is a mobile or web application that can provide multiple services including payment and financial transaction processing, effectively becoming an all-encompassing self-contained commerce and com ...
s such as
WeChat
WeChat () is a Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. WeChat has bee ...
have been called walled gardens by critics.
*Ownin
Walled Garden after 3rd Party Cookie Era
See also
*
Data portability Data portability is a concept to protect users from having their data stored in "silos" or "walled gardens" that are incompatible with one another, i.e. closed platforms, thus subjecting them to vendor lock-in and making the creation of data backups ...
*
Vendor lock-in
In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs.
The use of open standards and alternative ...
*
Business ecosystem Starting in the early 1990s, James F. Moore originated the strategic planning concept of a business ecosystem, now widely adopted in the high tech industry. The basic definition comes from Jim Moore's book, ''The Death of Competition: Leadership and ...
*
Damaged good
*
Dark web
The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on ''darknets'': overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access. Through the dark web, private computer networks can communi ...
*
Defective by Design
Defective by Design (DBD) is an anti-DRM initiative by the Free Software Foundation. Digital rights management (DRM) technology restricts users' ability to freely use their purchased movies, music, literature, software, and hardware in ways the ...
*
Digital rights management
Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. ...
*
Gated community
A gated community (or walled community) is a form of residential community or housing estate containing strictly controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and often characterized by a closed perimeter of walls and fences ...
*
Hardware restriction
A hardware restriction (sometimes called hardware DRM) is low-level protection enforced by electronic components. The hardware restriction scheme may protect against physical or malware attacks or complement a digital rights management system imp ...
*
Open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
*
Software protection dongle
A software protection dongle (commonly known as a dongle or key) is an electronic copy protection and content protection device. When connected to a computer or other electronics, they unlock software functionality or decode content. The hardware ...
*
User registration
A registered user is a user of a website, program, or other systems who has previously ''registered.'' Registered users normally provide some sort of credentials (such as a username or e-mail address, and a password) to the system in order to ...
References
{{Embedded systems
Application programming interfaces
Computing platforms
Hardware restrictions