[chii]

Building/construction regulation, electrical appliances code and compatibility etc works in real life. What makes software any different? It's an end result that regulators can mandate.

For example, the regulator can mandate that if you have an app that you sell (SaaS or not), you must also provide a way to export the data out in a machine readable, documented format.

Regulators can mandate that your app must have an api to insert compatible data into your app (like embedding). Regulators can mandate that your app must have an api to make it possible to embed into another app, or some other requirement.

It's up to society to make these regulations, just like how society mandates building safety code, electrical safety code etc. Companies won't do this willingly of course, but they can if their competition is also forced to (level playing field).