Competition as a substitute for portability mandates

Determine whether competition among AI platforms can induce functional portability of personalized memory without a portability mandate, despite each incumbent having a symmetric incentive to withhold portability.

Background

The formal model studies a single monopolistic platform and concludes that the platform will not voluntarily supply functional portability or salience infrastructure. The paper identifies an unresolved extension involving multiple competing platforms: conventional reasoning suggests competition might force portability, but the authors argue that low portability may benefit every incumbent symmetrically. The effect of competition on equilibrium portability therefore remains undetermined.

References

Whether competition between platforms substitutes for a portability mandate is genuinely open, and it is the extension we would run first: the na\"ive argument that competition forces portability runs into the observation that low $\phi$ raises every incumbent's stake symmetrically, so the incentive to withhold it is common rather than strategic.

— Beyond Provenance: The Economics and Governance of Personalized AI Memory  (2609.25521 - Chen et al., 22 Sep 2026) in Section 10, Discussion and Limitations