This is the outcome of an October 19, 2025 conversation between Michael Herman and Copilot.
🧩 Developer Incentives: Fragmentation vs Aggregation
Super apps flip the traditional developer model:
Old Model
Super App Model
Build standalone apps
Build mini-programs or plug-ins within super apps
Compete for store visibility
Compete for in-app placement and promotion
Monetize via ads or subscriptions
Monetize via bundled services, commissions, or shared revenue pools
Own user data
Share or rent access to super app user base
🔁 Strategic Shifts
Incentive realignment: Developers trade independence for reach. The super app offers instant distribution, but at the cost of brand autonomy and data ownership.
Modular architecture: Developers must adopt SDKs, APIs, and design systems tailored to the host super app.
Revenue reshuffling: Instead of direct monetization, developers may earn through usage-based payouts, affiliate models, or loyalty programs.
🏛️ Platform Governance: Centralization vs Regulation
Super apps challenge traditional platform governance:
App Store Governance
Super App Governance
Apple/Google set rules
Super app owner sets rules (e.g. WeChat, Grab)
OS-level privacy and security
App-level identity, payments, and data control
Regulatory oversight (DMA, GDPR)
Emerging scrutiny over super app monopolies
⚖️ Governance Tensions
Regulatory gray zones: Super apps blur lines between platform and app, raising questions about antitrust, data sovereignty, and consumer protection.
Policy fragmentation: Developers must navigate not only OS-level rules but also super app-specific governance—creating multi-layered compliance burdens.
User lock-in: Super apps centralize identity, payments, and services, making it harder for users to switch ecosystems—potentially triggering regulatory intervention.
🔮 Strategic Forecast
Developers will increasingly specialize in microservices, loyalty mechanics, and embedded commerce.
Platforms may respond with their own super app strategies (e.g. Apple Pay + Messages + Maps integration) or loosen restrictions to retain developer loyalty.
Regulators will likely push for interoperability, data portability, and transparency in super app ecosystems.
This layered breakdown is a sharp way to visualize how control dynamics and strategic shifts ripple through the mobile ecosystem.
This is the outcome of an October 10, 2025 conversation between Michael Herman, ChatCGT, and Copilot.
📱 Mobile Ecosystem Power Stack
Layer
Primary Control
Catalyst for Reshuffle
Strategic Impact
Platform Layer
Apple / Google
New API rules, OS policies
Developers must realign strategies to comply or compete
Developer Layer
App creators
Rise of cross-platform frameworks
Distribution becomes more fragmented and flexible
Distribution Layer
Platforms (App Stores)
Algorithmic curation, ranking
Monetization models shift based on visibility and reach
Monetization Layer
Developers / Platforms
Subscription-first models
Revenue flows restructured, favoring retention over acquisition
User Layer
End users
Enhanced privacy controls
Data value redefined, impacting targeting and personalization
🔄 Strategic Cascades
Top-down pressure: Platform rule changes (e.g. ATT, DMA compliance) force developers to rethink how they build, distribute, and monetize apps.
Bottom-up resistance: Users assert control via privacy settings, reshaping the value of behavioral data and forcing platforms to adapt monetization logic.
Middle-layer fluidity: Distribution and monetization are increasingly interlinked—algorithmic visibility directly affects revenue, while subscriptions demand deeper engagement.
A Reshuffle value chain is basically a rethinking of a traditional value chain where value is reorganized around control points — places in the chain where power, influence, or leverage exists. In the mobile app ecosystem, Reshuffle means understanding how the ecosystem is changing and identifying where control is concentrated so that new entrants, incumbents, or platforms can leverage or defend those points.
Based on an October 19, 2025 conversation between Michael Herman and ChatGPT.
Users consuming apps, engaging with services, making purchases.
2. Reshuffle Value Chain in Mobile Apps
Reshuffle shifts the view of the value chain to highlight new control points — places where power is concentrated that weren’t as visible before, and where value creation & capture is happening.
Here’s what a reshuffled mobile app value chain might look like:
Hardware → Operating System → App Store Distribution → Developer Enablement → Service Platforms → User Engagement → Monetization
But reshuffled control points reorder priorities. For example:
In a reshuffle, control points move from being purely physical or technical to being gatekeeping points where access, distribution, or monetization is mediated.
For the mobile app ecosystem, the main control points are:
Operating System / API Access — iOS and Android control core APIs.
App Stores — discovery, ranking, and distribution rules.
Developer Tools & SDKs — frameworks that create lock-in.
Payment Infrastructure — control of monetization flows.
User Data & Engagement Platforms — control of analytics and personalization.
Based on an October 10, 2025 conversation between Michael Herman and ChatGPT.
I feel the following doesn’t match 100% with what is presented in the book #Reshuffle but there are a few interesting parallels.
🧩 1. Background: What the “Reshuffle” Model Means
In the book Reshuffle, the core concept is that platforms continually reconfigure (“reshuffle”) the value chain — deciding:
Where to play (which layers of the ecosystem to own, open, or delegate)
How to win (by controlling key interfaces, user access, or data flows)
A reshuffle happens when a player changes the architecture of participation — shifting value, control, and power between ecosystem actors.
📱 2. Applying This to the Decentralized Mobile App Ecosystem
Let’s consider the mobile ecosystem as layers (simplified):
Layer
Examples
Current Gatekeepers
Hardware
Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, Google
Apple, Google
OS / Runtime
iOS, Android, Windows
Apple, Google
Distribution
App Store, Play Store, Web 7.0™ Store
Apple, Google
Payment / Identity
Apple Pay, Google Pay, Sign in with Apple
Apple, Google
Apps / Services
TikTok, Uber, Spotify
Independent developers
User Relationships / Data
Analytics, Ads, Web 7.0™ Trust Graph
Meta, Google, Apple increasingly
🔀 3. What a “Reshuffle” Looks Like Here
A reshuffle model describes how control, innovation, or value capture moves between these layers. Here are several current and emerging reshuffles:
A. Reshuffle Downward (Re-integration)
Platform owners pull value back down toward themselves:
Apple limits tracking (ATT) → cripples ad networks → reclaims privacy and ad advantage.
Google moves privacy features into Android → weakens cross-app data collection.
Super apps (WeChat, Grab) integrate multiple mini-apps inside one shell → pull distribution away from OS-level stores.
🧭 Effect: Platforms reclaim data, monetization, and developer dependence.
B. Reshuffle Upward (Decentralization / Open APIs)
Some innovations push value upward to developers and users:
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) bypass app stores.
Cross-platform frameworks (Flutter, React Native) reduce dependency on native SDKs.
Alternative app stores / sideloading (EU’s DMA) redistribute control.
🧭 Effect: Developers gain autonomy and flexibility, though discovery and monetization remain bottlenecks.
C. Reshuffle Laterally (New Platform Entrants)
New layers emerge, shifting boundaries:
AI agents / assistants become new distribution channels (e.g., OpenAI’s ChatGPT apps, Perplexity’s mobile UI).
Super app frameworks (e.g., Telegram mini-apps) become meta-platforms inside mobile OSes.
Wallet-based ecosystems (identity, crypto, digital goods) create cross-platform continuity.
🧭 Effect: Gatekeepers may lose user touchpoints to “meta-platforms” that sit on top of the OS.
⚙️ 4. A “Reshuffle Business Model Canvas” for Mobile Apps
Element
Description
Example
Trigger
What changes the distribution of value or control?
Regulatory changes (DMA), new tech (AI agents), shifts in user behavior
Anchor Layer
Which layer redefines the interface?
OS, identity, or payments
Redistributed Value
What moves?
Revenue, data, trust, discovery
New Gatekeepers
Who gains control?
AI assistants, mini-app frameworks
Old Gatekeepers
Who loses control?
App stores, SDK-based ad networks
User Benefit
What improves for users?
Choice, interoperability, integrated experience
Developer Impact
What improves or worsens?
Distribution, economics, discoverability
🧠 5. Example: The “AI Agent Reshuffle”
In 2025 and beyond, an AI-driven reshuffle looks like this:
Before
After
Users search for apps in App Store
Users ask AI assistants to “book a taxi” or “edit a photo”
Developers fight for app visibility
AI intermediates app selection and invocation
App Store controls discovery
AI layer controls orchestration and recommendation
OS owns distribution
AI owns user intent
🧭 Reshuffle Result: AI interfaces become the new “home screen.” App stores become backend registries. The distribution and discovery value shifts to the AI layer.
🏁 6. Summary
A Reshuffle model for the mobile app ecosystem describes how power and value continually move among:
OS and hardware vendors (Apple, Google)
Developers and third-party ecosystems
New intermediaries (AI agents, super apps)
Regulators (mandating openness)
The model emphasizes layer-by-layer realignment — each “reshuffle” altering where innovation, value, and control reside.
The invention of the barcode transformed retail and supply chains by providing a universal, machine-readable identifier that ensured accuracy, efficiency, and interoperability across diverse systems. Similarly, Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) represent a foundational innovation for digital ecosystems: a universal, cryptographically verifiable identifier that enables trusted communication across domains and platforms. This paper explores the analogy between DIDs and barcodes, examining how both enable end-to-end interoperability, reduce friction, and unlock new models of value creation.
In 1974, a pack of Wrigley’s gum was scanned at a Marsh supermarket in Ohio, marking the first use of the Universal Product Code (UPC). That moment marked the beginning of a transformation in retail, logistics, and global commerce. By providing a standardized identifier, barcodes automated inventory management, accelerated checkout, reduced human error, and laid the foundation for today’s global supply chains.
Digital ecosystems in the 21st century face an equivalent problem: how to create universal, secure, and machine-readable identifiers that work across organizations, platforms, and jurisdictions. While domain names, IP addresses, and UUIDs serve as identifiers, none are self-sovereign, portable, and verifiable across trust boundaries. Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) aim to solve this.
This paper argues that DIDs are the barcodes of digital trust: a universal, machine-readable system for identifying entities in secure communications, enabling a new end-to-end supply chain of digital trust.
2. The Barcode Revolution
2.1 Before Barcodes
Manual price tags and clerical data entry.
Inventory tracking prone to human error.
Inefficient supply chains with frequent stockouts and overstocking.
Lack of standardization across retailers and manufacturers.
2.2 With Barcodes
Universal identifiers: UPC and EAN standards.
Machine readability: fast, automated scanning reduced labor costs and errors.
End-to-end traceability: from manufacturer → distributor → retailer → checkout.
Scalability: millions of products, billions of transactions.
Impact: Barcodes enabled just-in-time inventory, global retail expansion, and precise supply chain optimization [Brown, Inventing the Barcode, 2010]. The key insight: a universal, interoperable identifier unlocks systemic efficiencies across the value chain.
3. DIDs: A Digital Barcode for Trust
3.1 What are DIDs?
Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) are globally unique identifiers that are self-sovereign, verifiable, and resolvable without reliance on centralized registries. Defined by the W3C, DIDs point to DID Documents, which contain public keys, service endpoints, and metadata necessary for establishing secure communication.
3.2 Core Features
Universality: A DID can represent a person, organization, device, or digital asset.
Machine readability: DIDs are structured and resolvable by software.
Cryptographic trust: Integrity and authenticity are verifiable through signatures and key material.
Decentralization: No single issuing authority required; anyone can create a DID.
Extensibility: Support for multiple DID methods (blockchain, ledger, peer-to-peer).
3.3 Why It Matters
Just as barcodes freed retail from manual, siloed processes, DIDs free digital ecosystems from centralized identity silos (e.g., social logins, proprietary identity providers).
4. Mapping the Analogy: Barcodes vs. DIDs
Barcode Property
DID Equivalent
Implications
Universal product identifier
Universal decentralized identifier
Enables global recognition of digital actors
Machine-readable
Machine-resolvable DID Document
Automated verification by software agents
Standardization (UPC/EAN)
W3C DID Core standard
Cross-platform interoperability
Scannable at every point in supply chain
Resolvable across trust domains
End-to-end verifiable identity
Facilitates inventory management
Facilitates trust management
Ensures secure digital transactions
Enables retail efficiency
Enables digital trust ecosystems
Reduces cost, friction, and fraud
5. Benefits of the Barcode Analogy
End-to-End Traceability
Barcodes track goods from origin to checkout.
DIDs enable trust from authentication through data exchange to audit.
Any barcode scanner can read a UPC; any DID-compliant system can resolve a DID.
Scalability
Barcodes scaled to billions of products; DIDs can scale to billions of devices, people, and services.
Systemic Transformation
Barcodes reshaped retail; DIDs could reshape finance, healthcare, IoT, and governance.
6. Limits of the Analogy
Centralization vs. Decentralization: Barcodes are managed by centralized registries (GS1), whereas DIDs are inherently decentralized.
Trust Layer: Barcodes encode only identity (the product number), not integrity or authenticity. DIDs add cryptographic verifiability.
Complexity: Scanning a barcode is simpler than resolving a DID, which requires cryptographic operations and network lookups.
Adoption: Barcodes achieved rapid, global retail adoption; DIDs remain in early deployment phases.
7. Strategic Implications
7.1 Identity and Access
DIDs could serve as the UPC of digital identity, enabling universal, interoperable identity across organizations.
7.2 Supply Chain and IoT
DIDs can extend barcodes’ logic into digital-physical convergence, providing secure digital twins for physical assets.
7.3 Finance and Governance
DIDs provide the foundational layer of trust for verifiable credentials, smart contracts, and cross-border compliance.
7.4 The “Barcode Moment”
Just as retail only transformed once barcodes were widely adopted, the digital trust economy will require a tipping point of DID adoption to realize systemic benefits.
8. Conclusion
The barcode transformed retail by enabling universal, machine-readable product identification across the supply chain. DIDs can do the same for digital ecosystems by enabling universal, machine-readable, and verifiable identity.
If DIDs achieve broad adoption, they could serve as the universal identifiers of digital trust, enabling secure, scalable, and interoperable communication across the global digital economy — much as barcodes enabled the rise of global retail supply chains.
References
Brown, George. Inventing the Barcode. MIT Press, 2010.
The steel shipping container transformed global trade by introducing a standardized, secure, and interoperable abstraction for transporting goods. Similarly, Decentralized Identifier Communication (DIDComm) offers a standardized, secure, and interoperable mechanism for transmitting trusted digital information between agents. This paper explores the analogy between DIDComm messages and steel containers, examining their properties, benefits, and limitations, and assessing the potential of DIDComm to catalyze a transformation in digital ecosystems comparable to the shipping container revolution.
The 20th century witnessed a quiet revolution in global trade: the invention and adoption of the steel shipping container. More than faster ships or larger ports, it was standardization in how goods were packaged and transported that unlocked efficiency, scale, and global interoperability.
In the 21st century, digital ecosystems face a parallel challenge. Secure communication across heterogeneous systems remains fragmented by proprietary protocols, siloed trust frameworks, and inconsistent interoperability. Despite advances in transport protocols (HTTP, WebSocket, Bluetooth) and security primitives (TLS, OAuth, JWT), no universal standard exists for trusted, end-to-end, cross-domain messaging.
DIDComm (Decentralized Identifier Communication) aims to fill this gap. It provides a standardized envelope for secure, interoperable communication between agents in decentralized ecosystems. This paper argues that DIDComm can be understood as the steel shipping container of digital communication — a payload-agnostic, transport-agnostic, secure packaging standard that enables trust to move seamlessly across networks and domains.
Stackability: efficient storage and loading by crane.
Interoperability: ships, ports, trucks, and trains adapted to a single form factor.
Impact: Containerization reduced costs by ~90% and increased the speed and scale of global trade [Levinson, The Box, 2006]. The key insight: decouple contents from infrastructure via a universal abstraction.
3. DIDComm: A Digital Container Standard
3.1 What is DIDComm?
DIDComm is a protocol suite for secure, private, and interoperable communication using Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) as endpoints. It defines how messages are packaged, encrypted, authenticated, and routed between agents.
Transport agnosticism: works over HTTP, Bluetooth, WebRTC, email, etc.
Routing via mediators: messages can traverse multiple relays without breaking end-to-end security.
Payload agnosticism: the message may carry verifiable credentials, IoT commands, or arbitrary application data.
3.3 Why It Matters
Just as containers enabled intermodal trade, DIDComm enables intermodal trust exchange. Applications, wallets, devices, and services can interoperate without bespoke integrations.
4. Mapping the Analogy: Containers vs. DIDComm
Container Property
DIDComm Equivalent
Implications
Standardized form
Envelope with defined structure (headers, body, metadata)
Guarantees interoperability across agents and vendors
Sealed & secure
Encryption + authentication
Protects against unauthorized access and tampering
Intermodal transport
Transport-agnostic delivery
Works across protocols without altering the payload
Routing via logistics
Mediators, DID resolution, forwarding
Enables flexible message delivery
Opaque contents
Encrypted payload
Only authorized parties can inspect
Global ecosystem support
Agent networks, wallets, identity hubs
Emerging infrastructure could mirror global ports and carriers
5. Benefits of the Container Analogy
Interoperability
Any DIDComm-compliant agent can process a message, just as any port can handle a container.
Security and Trust
Messages are sealed like containers, with tamper-evident cryptography.
Efficiency
Reduces the cost and complexity of building integrations across organizations.
Scalability
Supports any type of payload: credentials, IoT signals, governance instructions.
Decentralization
No reliance on a central authority; trust derives from cryptographic keys, similar to how container standards are managed by ISO, not controlled by one nation or corporation.
6. Limits of the Analogy
Physical persistence vs. digital ephemerality: Containers endure across voyages; messages vanish after delivery.
Metadata leakage: Container labels are visible; DIDComm may still expose sender/recipient metadata.
Standard stability: Container sizes have been stable for decades; DIDComm may evolve quickly.
Global adoption: Containerization achieved near-universal acceptance; DIDComm is still early in adoption.
7. Strategic Implications
7.1 Identity & Credentials
DIDComm provides a secure transport for verifiable credentials, enabling cross-border, cross-domain trust.
7.2 IoT Ecosystems
IoT devices require lightweight, trustable communication. DIDComm offers a containerized way to exchange secure commands.
7.3 Cross-Domain Interoperability
Applications in finance, healthcare, supply chains, and governance can exchange trusted data without bespoke APIs.
7.4 The “Container Moment”
Global trade was reshaped once container standards reached critical mass. DIDComm could catalyze a parallel moment in digital ecosystems if widely adopted.
8. Conclusion
The steel shipping container revolutionized trade by abstracting the packaging and transport of goods into a universal, secure standard. DIDComm has the potential to do the same for digital trust, abstracting communication into a universal, secure, and interoperable form.
If DIDComm achieves broad adoption, it could serve as the logistics backbone of the digital trust economy, enabling decentralized ecosystems to scale with the efficiency and security once brought to global commerce by steel containers.
References
Levinson, Marc. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. Princeton University Press, 2006.
The Web 7.0 Foundation is a relatively new organization, incorporated in Canada on May 1, 2023². It focuses on developing specifications and standards for a unified software and hardware ecosystem aimed at building resilient, trusted, and decentralized systems¹³.
Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) typically seek accreditation to demonstrate their competence and adherence to specific procedures and standards. One prominent accreditation body is the International Accreditation Service (IAS), which provides accreditation based on criteria such as AC803¹². This accreditation involves an assessment of the SDO’s standardization process, procedures, and management system².
In the United States, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredits SDOs that follow a consensus-based process³. This ensures that the standards developed are the result of a transparent, balanced, and inclusive process.
Accreditation helps SDOs validate their ability to consistently develop high-quality normative documents, enhancing trust and credibility in their standardization efforts².
Web 7.0™ / TDW AgenticOS™ / TDW™ / Hyperonomy™ Digital Identity Lab 