@mtmail @jonty The key difference is that if the government pays to develop a fine-grained postal code system, albeit implemented by a privatised post office or, in the case of Ireland, by Capita, then there's usually some light at the end of the tunnel that the data might be made open on some way, medium term (cf. CodePoint Open). If you relinquish to W3W you are inextricably linked to a global-scale system run by a foreign company - until their patent runs out.