Google just announced it’s “opening up” commerce. My first thought was, “Here we go again.”
I’ve spent the last decade helping B2B companies create content that actually moves the needle and running a network of restoration contractors who live and die by how easily they can get jobs. When someone says “open,” I don’t think about APIs and protocols. I think about who actually ends up holding the bag.
The Open That Isn’t
Google loves the word open. Open web. Open systems. Open commerce. Yet somehow their version of open always seems to route more power, more data, and more revenue back through Google.
The Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is the latest idea in this parade. On paper it sounds reasonable: a standardized way for merchants, platforms, and tools to talk to each other without being locked into any single marketplace. Sounds great. Until you look at who’s pushing it hardest.
When Google ships “open,” it usually means they’ve identified a choke point they don’t yet fully control, so they create a standard that lets everyone else do the heavy lifting while they keep the highway.
Who Actually Carries the Complexity?
Here’s what they’re not saying out loud: this “open commerce” future puts most of the operational complexity on the merchant while moving the actual competition upstream to the platforms.
Merchants already run on razor-thin margins. Now we’re telling them they need to implement another protocol, maintain product data in yet another format, sync inventory across more channels, and handle fulfillment logic that used to live inside a marketplace. All in the name of “freedom.”
Meanwhile, the platforms and large aggregators get cleaner access to more merchants with less friction. They can build better discovery tools, more personalized experiences, and tighter loyalty loops because the data flows more freely. The merchant becomes the standardized data hose while the platforms become the smart endpoints.
I’ve watched this movie before. Remember when Google said Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) was all about making the web faster and more open? Publishers did the work. Google got faster search results and more control over the user experience. Publishers got… to be “open.”
Same story, different domain.
The Restoration Business Test
Let me bring this down to the real world I live in every day.
My restoration contractors don’t want to be “open commerce” nodes. They want to know when a basement floods in their zip code and how to get the job. They want to show up in searches when someone needs water damage help at 2am. They want to get paid.
The complexity of implementing UCP, maintaining product catalogs (they’re service businesses, remember), syncing availability, handling reviews across platforms — this doesn’t help them. It creates more work for the same or marginal additional revenue.
The platforms that aggregate these jobs? They win. The middleware companies that help merchants “be compatible” with the new standard? They win. The consultants and agencies that implement all this? They definitely win.
The local restoration guy in Ohio who just wants his phone to ring when shit hits the fan? He’s supposed to celebrate being part of an “open ecosystem.”
This is what happens when people in Mountain View design systems for people in the real world.
The Pattern Is Clear
Google doesn’t dislike closed systems. They dislike closed systems they don’t control. When they can’t buy or build the dominant platform, they create an “open” alternative that pulls the center of gravity back toward their infrastructure.
UCP might genuinely make some technical connections easier. I’m not against better interoperability. But let’s stop pretending this is some altruistic move for merchants. This is Google positioning itself at the center of commerce data flows by making everyone else standardize first.
The merchants will carry the integration costs. The platforms will capture the value. Google will control the protocol layer that decides what “open” actually means in practice.
I’ve seen too many “open” initiatives that end up as sophisticated toll roads.
Will’s Take: Open is a hell of a marketing word when Google uses it. The Universal Commerce Protocol might solve some real technical problems, but it doesn’t change the fundamental power dynamics. Merchants will do more work. Platforms will get more leverage. And Google will position itself as the neutral observer while directing traffic through its preferred channels. If you’re a merchant, approach this with your eyes wide open. Because “open” in this context might just mean open for Google to keep winning.
Related: Configure /.well-known/ucp Discovery Endpoint for AI
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