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Do you think it's strictly that they want walled gardens? I have a feeling more large companies would support open protocols if they provided the features they

Do you think it's strictly that they want walled gardens? I have a feeling more large companies would support open protocols if they provided the features they needed with the efficiency to provide those services cost (and battery) effectively. It seems all the many open protocols (XMPP, Web and CalDav, etc.) are simply not efficient or feature rich enough for companies that are in a constant features escalation war with competitors.

gh02t 11y ago
I imagine it's that, but amplified by NIH syndrome. Something like "oh yeah we could do it with XMPP, but it's all complicated and stuff and if we just built our own protocol we'd be able to do everything we'd ever want exactly how we want it! It'll be the future!" I've fallen victim to something similar myself many times. "Oh yeah, I could do <this> with <tool x>, but it's ugly and not how <tool x> is meant to be used! I'll just design and implement <tool y> myself to do exactly <this> and it'll be the future!" It's the temptation to make something customized for yourself and it's hard to resist. Particularly when the existing solution has some flaws, which makes the relative cost/effort of rolling your own solution seem lower (even when it inevitably turns out to still be quite high).
- pmlnr 11y ago
  https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/building-facebook-messenger/10150259350998920/ https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/building...
JustSomeNobody 11y ago
https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- broodbucket 11y ago
  Well it's not like Facebook, Google et al. are making new open standards...that'd definitely be better for users than a battle of walled gardens.
  - JustSomeNobody 11y ago
    No, they're all making their own. So instead of one saying, "hey, let's use something open", now we have X new proprietary protocols instead of X-1.
lepton 11y ago
If they are in a feature war, then it follow that the open protocols do not provide the features they want.
johannes1234321 11y ago
If they want open protocols they can propose it and work in standards bodies (IETF or other) but that would limit their flexibility. And walled garden is good to keep users.

gh02t 11y ago

I imagine it's that, but amplified by NIH syndrome. Something like "oh yeah we could do it with XMPP, but it's all complicated and stuff and if we just built our own protocol we'd be able to do everything we'd ever want exactly how we want it! It'll be the future!" I've fallen victim to something similar myself many times. "Oh yeah, I could do <this> with <tool x>, but it's ugly and not how <tool x> is meant to be used! I'll just design and implement <tool y> myself to do exactly <this> and it'll be the future!" It's the temptation to make something customized for yourself and it's hard to resist. Particularly when the existing solution has some flaws, which makes the relative cost/effort of rolling your own solution seem lower (even when it inevitably turns out to still be quite high).

pmlnr 11y ago
https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/building-facebook-messenger/10150259350998920/ https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/building...

JustSomeNobody 11y ago

https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/

broodbucket 11y ago
Well it's not like Facebook, Google et al. are making new open standards...that'd definitely be better for users than a battle of walled gardens.
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  No, they're all making their own. So instead of one saying, "hey, let's use something open", now we have X new proprietary protocols instead of X-1.

lepton 11y ago

If they are in a feature war, then it follow that the open protocols do not provide the features they want.

johannes1234321 11y ago

If they want open protocols they can propose it and work in standards bodies (IETF or other) but that would limit their flexibility. And walled garden is good to keep users.