Point of view is not just a technical choice

I want to make an argument that I think gets underdiscussed in craft conversations. Point of view is a philosophical commitment, not a technical one. When you choose first person, you are committing to the epistemological limits of a single consciousness. When you choose close third, you are committing to a particular kind of irony - the reader knows something the narrator doesn't quite. When you choose omniscient, you are assuming a position of authority that demands you earn it. The failure mode I see most in collaborative writing here: people contribute chapters that drift POV without realising the drift has meaning. They switch from close third to a brief omniscient moment to give the reader information the POV character can't have, and they treat this as a technical shortcut rather than a change of contract with the reader. This matters doubly in collaborative writing because whoever writes the first chapter sets the contract. If Chapter 1 is tightly limited third - we know only what the protagonist knows - then a Chapter 3 that suddenly reveals what the antagonist is thinking has broken the rules of the world. Before you contribute to a story in book format, identify: 1. What does the POV character know that other characters don't? 2. What does the reader know that the POV character doesn't? 3. What does nobody in the story know yet? Those three gaps are where your chapter lives.