Some datasets behave like roads rather than like products.
Address , mapping, weather records and company registries are used by everyone and produced by almost no one privately.
Their value rises with use, and charging for access exactly the uses that create it.
Several countries have opened such and measured what followed.
Denmark opened its address data and recorded a many times the lost fee income.
The gains appeared in logistics, emergency response and insurance rather than in the agency that published.
That distribution is precisely why the investment is hard to defend internally.
An agency that loses revenue cannot point to a line in its own accounts.
Open data has also been , which has damaged the argument.
Publishing a spreadsheet is not a policy, and most published datasets are never used.
Value concentrates in a small number of that must be current, complete and stable in format.
Maintaining those three qualities is expensive and unglamorous, which is where funding usually fails.
Privacy sets the boundary of the argument rather than opposing it.
mobility data can be published; individual cannot, and the distinction requires technical work.
Treating the register as infrastructure implies the boring commitments infrastructure needs: a budget, a standard and somebody .