THE PROTOCOL FORCE

Summary from the TLDR newsletter

The protocol force encourages the layer between consumers of value and producers of value to be as thin as possible. IP, HTTP, and HTML are great examples of this effect. The protocol force minimizes the cost of reaching as many consumers or producers as possible. This force is present in any layered stack that has producers and consumers as outer layers. One of the key challenges of designing versatile tools is that this middle layer is constantly tested and often broken.