Why Files Exist
I disagree that files are the only solution. Back in the 90's Apple had an OS that had fully interoperable data in applications and that OS didn't have a file system.<p>It was Newton-OS and it used something known as soups for persistent storage. Soups were discoverable databases that intelligently handled Flash cards insertion/ejection. The ability to handle Flash on removable media is still something that mobile OS's have trouble with to this day.<p>The OS could merge soups on different stores dynamically and detect if some data in a soup was currently in use on an ejected card and ask for the card back. This merging of soups on different storage devices is something I've never seen duplicated in the subsequent 20 years.<p>Files are not the only way to achieve the requirements in the article. They are just the common solution.