Why not the things you’re about to compare it to?
§4 of 6 · ~3 min read
Every reader who hears “platform for data exchange across organisations” instinctively reaches for something familiar. Each of these analogies is wrong in a specific way.
Not Google Drive or Dropbox
File-shaped. There is no policy bound to a transferred file once it leaves the share, no way to bind use (“emissions reporting only, 18-month retention”), no cross-organisation audit. Drive shares an artifact; a dataspace governs an exchange.
Not AWS or a hosted database
Single-tenant data hosting, even when shared. The thing AWS sells you is storage and compute under your account; the thing a dataspace sells is governed flow between independent accounts that don’t trust each other. Two orgs both on AWS still need a connector to share data under negotiated policy; one org on AWS and one on Scaleway is just as workable. Different products at different layers.
Not SFTP or managed file transfer
File-shaped again, with even less policy. SFTP carries bytes between two endpoints; it does not negotiate use, retention, or purpose. A regulator cannot read SFTP logs and learn what the data was for. Every transfer is a one-off, configured pair-by-pair, with no shared rulebook and no concept of an org-level identity that means anything outside the pair.
Not BitTorrent, IPFS, or peer-to-peer
Transport without identity or policy. P2P moves bytes between any two endpoints; it has no opinion on who should be allowed to receive them, on what terms, or whether the receiver agreed to anything. The shape is right (no central store, peer-to-peer), but it is missing the entire policy and identity layer. A dataspace requires identity (companies, signed by issuers regulators recognise) and policy (negotiated per transfer, machine-enforceable). Peer-to-peer transport is the easy part.
Not custom B2B APIs
Bespoke per pair. Each integration is hand-built, with its own auth model, its own data shape, its own contract. This works for two organisations; it does not work for a supply chain of three thousand. Six suppliers and one OEM is twelve point-to-point integrations, no shared rules, no auditability, and a re-build every time the consortium adds a participant. Dataspaces compose because the rulebook is shared.
Previous: ← §3 What’s a dataspace? Next: §5 Why Europe is doing this →