Michael Shea
To perform a strategic analysis on the Self-Sovereign Identity sector to identify gaps in the approach that should be addressed.
This paper is not intended as a competitive analysis of the individual players in the sector but as an
analysis of the SSI community at large, the competitive landscape and the market place threats that would
prevent SSI coming to maturity. In many aspects the SSI sector is attempting to create a ‘Blue Ocean’
strategy to shift the competitive landscape on identity in the digital realm to redefine digital identity
to one of personal control. In doing so, it creates as potential competitors not only the traditional identity
software providers, but also commercial enterprises that have tied control of identity into their
business models (Google, Facebook).
The SSI community it not some recent creation, but has evolved out of a group of individuals that have been long active in the realm of Internet identity. With the creation of Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) a fundamental technology has come into the market that so far appears to enable a degree of decentralization and control that has heretofore not been achievable.
As a relatively newcomer to the digital identity space, what has struck me is how passionate and tight knit this community is; over the past six months I have read, observed and spoken with many different members of different SSI projects, and the striking feature is that there exists a strong ethos of cooperation while seeking the strongest technical solutions for the sector. There are strong passions and opinions around the right and wrong way to describe or do things, but these differences are always expressed in a manner conducive to creative dissonance with the objective of creating something much better.
In the past six weeks I have observed a couple of episodes that are the source of this paper topic. The first occurred shortly after the Global Hyperledger conference in Basel, Switzerland and the second more recently with the application to the W3C for DID WG status. Just after the Hyperledger conference Michael Herman opened up many issues (10-20?) in Github around the language and construction of the DID specification. These issues resulted in many email/Zoom/Rocket Chat conversations. What was surprising (to me anyways) was, as a specification that appeared to be advanced in implementation and commitment of people and financial resources the level of gap.
The second episode, was around the state of the DID Use Case document that was submitted to W3C with the WG application. From the comments within the email channel, this oversight could have had very serious repercussions on all the solid work that had been done to date. Again given the level of engagement of the community I found this event surprising and lead me to wonder if, while deep into all the technology aspects of SSI, that it would be useful and important to take a step back and get ‘on the balcony’ to try and see the larger picture.
There are many kinds of strategic analysis frameworks, but in this case, I am proposing that Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis be conducted on the SSI community and sector. While SWOT analyses are typically done in commercial or marketing related activities it is also appropriate for community organizing, with the hoped outcome to be a summary paper and input into a plan of action to counter the threats, leverage the opportunities, build up the weaknesses, and maintain the strengths.
- Dedication and engagement of SSI technical community
- Depth of knowledge and experience on digital identity
- Engagement and commitment of community
- Size of and breadth community
- Economic model of underlying Blockchain or DLT technology
- Interoperability
- Immaturity of underlying Blockchain/DLT technology
- Rapid technology changes occurring in the base technologies
- Elimination of centralized identity repository honey pots
- Fragmenting of the internet
- Failure to reach critical mass
- Entrenchment of centralized identity solutions within market
- Centralized identity systems controlled by State actors.
A danger in all SWOT analyses is the reduction of everything to bullet points, I accept this risk right now, with the intent of developing these further with more input and conversation.
In preparing this paper, I have created an initial list based on my observations, conversations and readings from the last six months. I look forward to an engaged conversation to develop and expand these with those of you that are interested in this topic.