I don't know how well this translates to the software space. Of course, it's great that there are some standards, like HTTP, that are in common. When it comes to communication, standards like email and XMPP aren't proving that useful. Email is incredibly insecure and XMPP doesn't have much usage, and new features are lacking in both. Meanwhile, communications services that have implemented open standards in a non-federated way like WhatsApp, Signal, and Slack are soaring.