Data: It was the best of times, it was the. . .

. . . actually no, it really is just the best of times. David Sparks sees a revolution on the horizon:

We are on the verge of something remarkable with our data. Simple data portability is here and it is killing the stranglehold of any one software developer over our digital toolbelts. This option-rich environment is letting people build their own workflows. For a change, the machines are working for us. How did we get here?

He'll tell you.