Measuring the Stack¶

Stéfane Fermigier

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Abstract¶

The Tech Sovereignty Package made the technology stack the unit of policy. Three questions about it stay open: what a stack measures, where in it the cost of dependence sits, and which instruments reach that cost. Dependence composes along paths, so a criterion satisfied at every layer can still leave one controller able to stop the whole path; the cost of dependence is the cost of leaving, and an instrument lowers the price only through the exit-cost component it touches; a component bundled at no incremental price has no renewal event, so subsidy is inert against it. Answers drawn from the lab's published measurements, each proved, cross-checked and sourced.

The fifteen building blocks of the Open Internet Stack in their three layers, each with the class the build-order analysis gives it.

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Fermigier, S. (2026). Measuring the Stack.
Policy paper, Abilian Econ Lab.
https://econ.lab.abilian.com/papers/technology-stacks-position/