3 ms·

Attack of the Platform Holders

1 points by twidlit 17y ago

Apple has overplayed its dictatorship, Twitter bought Tweetie, Facebook is pushing its own credit system. Is this the evolution or devolution of tech platforms? thoughts?

stevenwei 17y ago
The problem is that these platforms have gotten so big that it's hard to directly compete against them. Instead, developers have decided to join them, knowing full well that the platform owners hold all the marbles and can yank the rug out from under you at any time. What's interesting to me is that Apple is getting lambasted over their 'closed platform', but we can clearly see with Twitter and Facebook that the 'open web' suffers similar problems when you build to someone else's platform.
nostrademons 17y ago
It's consolidation. It's the same thing that happened to the web browser market as first Netscape and then IE dominated the browser was. The same thing as when Apple and IBM-and-clones basically divided the PC market and forced out all the other early entrants. It sucks if you're one of the also-ran platforms, it sucks if you developed for one of the also-ran platforms, and it means you have dramatically less bargaining power if you're developing for one of the winning platforms. (OTOH, it's pretty nice if you're bought by one of the winning platforms.) I wouldn't worry about it too much in terms of the long-term evolution of tech platforms, though. Historically, each major consolidation of platforms has laid the groundwork for the adoption of the next big platform. The web would never have caught on if Netscape had needed to support, well, these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_home_computers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_home_computers instead of just Windows/Mac/Linux. Then today's Web 2.0 apps like Facebook and Twitter would never have caught on if they had to support all the early browsers in addition to IE & Firefox. Similarly, I bet this consolidation of web & mobile platforms lays the groundwork for some platform that replaces them all.

1 points by twidlit 17y ago

Apple has overplayed its dictatorship, Twitter bought Tweetie, Facebook is pushing its own credit system. Is this the evolution or devolution of tech platforms? thoughts?

stevenwei 17y ago

The problem is that these platforms have gotten so big that it's hard to directly compete against them. Instead, developers have decided to join them, knowing full well that the platform owners hold all the marbles and can yank the rug out from under you at any time. What's interesting to me is that Apple is getting lambasted over their 'closed platform', but we can clearly see with Twitter and Facebook that the 'open web' suffers similar problems when you build to someone else's platform.

nostrademons 17y ago

It's consolidation. It's the same thing that happened to the web browser market as first Netscape and then IE dominated the browser was. The same thing as when Apple and IBM-and-clones basically divided the PC market and forced out all the other early entrants. It sucks if you're one of the also-ran platforms, it sucks if you developed for one of the also-ran platforms, and it means you have dramatically less bargaining power if you're developing for one of the winning platforms. (OTOH, it's pretty nice if you're bought by one of the winning platforms.) I wouldn't worry about it too much in terms of the long-term evolution of tech platforms, though. Historically, each major consolidation of platforms has laid the groundwork for the adoption of the next big platform. The web would never have caught on if Netscape had needed to support, well, these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_home_computers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_home_computers instead of just Windows/Mac/Linux. Then today's Web 2.0 apps like Facebook and Twitter would never have caught on if they had to support all the early browsers in addition to IE & Firefox. Similarly, I bet this consolidation of web & mobile platforms lays the groundwork for some platform that replaces them all.