11 ms·

Platforms are for Suckers: Why you shouldn't build your business on one.

91 points by dmitri1981 16y ago

steveklabnik 16y ago
As one of those people chiding you, I see now why you make the distinction between those two kinds of platforms. I do think you have a legitimate point, but I'm not sure how to fix this problem. There's so much potential in web platforms...
- junklight 16y ago
  I don't think you can fix it. You take risks all along the continuum - if you are standalone you have more control but you need to get user buy in. If you go to a busy popular platform then you risk falling into the sinking sands caused by someone elses control. in both cases people will fail from things out with their control - its just easier to point at if its someone else changing the rules. (and easier to grumble about) edit: like the guy above says - you need to tailor your risk. On someone else's platform - look for quick rewards and work on the basis its only a matter of time until it goes away
gyardley 16y ago
Amen. My startup's too dependent on a single platform right now, and we're being burnt by it. What platforms are for is speedy cash. The access you'll get to large numbers of people is a great help. Just keep your efforts cheap and dirty and put the money in your pocket as soon as you get it.
- pacemkr 16y ago
  I could not agree more. I am also dependent on a single platform and am acutely aware of the fact that this is not a good long term (6 mo +) investment of my time. However, building for a popular platform is a good way to make some quick cash without having to worry about anything but the quality of your product (ie. getting discovered, marketing, payment processing, etc.)
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    Is a meta-platform possible? Leaving 3.3.1 aside, what about a company acting as a clearinghouse that takes care of all of the platform issues for you, submits your app, markets it, takes care of payment. Perhaps this is possible with Javascript web apps for mobile devices?
henning 16y ago
Ventrilo's popularity is a priori evidence of how fucking dumb gamers are.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  Language! But that said, the popularity of MMOs, with game dynamics all too similar to slot machines and resort casinos isn't a good sign. (I say this as a former Eve Online addict.)
patio11 16y ago
I largely agree with the thesis, but can't seem to get my head around marketing on the open Internet without being tied body and soul to the Google platform.
- percept 16y ago
  Agreed. If anybody has some good ideas/links about this, please share.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    Why are Bing and Yahoo not viable alternatives? Is it because your competition will out-market you using the better Google platform?
    - patio11 16y ago
      Why are Bing and Yahoo not viable alternatives? Mostly because they have decisively lost the search market in the United States. I deal with one of the most non-technical niches imaginable, and Google gives me 10x the traffic that Bing does. (It is an interesting question of whether this is solely because Google is crushing Bing in market share, or if it is a reflection of adaptation of my business to meet Google's demands. That is largely academic, though. Its a factor of freaking ten. Bing and Yahoo could both go dark tomorrow permanently and I might not even notice. The last time Google went dark, for 45 minutes, I started fielding customer support queries about how I "broke the Internet". And while that is amusing phrasing, I don't think it is false. Google is navigation on the open Internet. (Insert obligatory disclaimer: for English speaking Americans. It is a bit different in Japan. It is even more lopsided in the UK in Google's favor.) Edit to add: Do not get me started on their PPC services. Its like Bill Gates said "We want this to have the technical chops of Google and the dedication to service of a convent!" and the memo got horribly, horribly misread.
      - stcredzero 16y ago
        Does Microsoft know that Bing lost? (Maybe from their POV, it's just waiting in the wings.)
tjmaxal 16y ago
This may seem like an oversimplification but like the article says all web apps are built on browsers and all browsers are built on an OS and all OSes are built on hardware, all hardware is built on a chip set etc, etc, etc, till you get down to the fact that all of it runs on electricity. It seems like it's turtles all the way down.
- patio11 16y ago
  That is an oversimplification, in important respects. There are multiple competing options for most of those platforms, responsibility for them is diffuse, and change happens very gradually. I mean, yes, technically speaking, I am dependent on electricity. But that doesn't mean there is a $8 an hour representative at the power company whose job is to shut down 24 businesses today to preserve the power company's vision for what proper use of electricity looks like, and whose decision is beyond repeal.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    That is an oversimplification, in important respects. It's not so much the fact of a platform. It's the nature of the ecosystem that lives on that platform. How open is it? Is it subject to whims and sudden change? Are these alternatives? Are there open standards? Is there competition between implementations?
  - fierarul 16y ago
    > That is an oversimplification, in important respects. There are multiple competing options for most of those platforms, responsibility for them is diffuse, and change happens very gradually. Also, at some point it's not platform, it's infrastructure. You could assume that your business will use credit cards and online payment since this is part of the infrastructure but when you are using the payment API of company MegaCorp to have those payments, you might get burned with their particular Platform. > I mean, yes, technically speaking, I am dependent on electricity. But that doesn't mean there is a $8 an hour representative at the power company whose job is to shut down 24 businesses today to preserve the power company's vision for what proper use of electricity looks like, and whose decision is beyond repeal. This isn't a good comparison. The thing is the electricity provider is much more regulated by laws, more stable and slower in changes compared to some other companies. Also -- it's infrastructure. Technically, some "power company vision" is kept since you can't actually put any two wires to make a gizmo and sell it on the market as a product. Another interesting factoid: home users have a limit on how much electricity you can consume. After a given limit you have to ask special permit from the electricity provider and probably pay extra. The trick is all these things are stipulated somewhere and public.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- stcredzero 16y ago
  Here's how I read what he's saying: "Platform = Middleman. Don't be a sucker, be a middleman! They outsource the risk and get it all in the end."
  - Psyonic 16y ago
    "The Art of Good Business Is Being A Good Middleman." -- Layer Cake
- spencerfry 16y ago
  "... and if you can't build what the platform provides -- give up!" That's not actually my point at all. The reason GameComm failed is that it wasn't a web app. It was desktop software. That's just a whole different ballgame and something I definitely wasn't familiar with. Is Spencer suggesting companies should attempt to build their own iPhones? Build their own Facebook? Build their own Twitter. In an essence, yes. You should make sure you build all of your core functionality in-house and not rely on other platforms for it. If you don't then you're going to run into similar problems that I had and others have.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
TotlolRon 16y ago
"If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." -- Sir Isaac Newton
- raganwald 16y ago
  One of the suggestions is that this was intended as an insult to a rival, Hooke, who was short and hunchbacked. Although popular, this suggestion has been disputed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Fame http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Fame
Raphael 16y ago
Commercial platforms are for suckers. Open platforms are huge wins.
- stakent 16y ago
  Can we have examples of open platforms, please?
  - jauer 16y ago
    So far as easy to deploy webstack platforms go, Joyent's SmartPlatform seems to be open: http://www.joyent.com/technology/smartplatform/ http://www.joyent.com/technology/smartplatform/ Code on github to run your own instance: http://github.com/joyent/smart-platform/ http://github.com/joyent/smart-platform/
raganwald 16y ago
I like everything about the post except for the word "platform." That is an overly broad word that does mean web browsers and the Internet itself and electricity. I prefer the phrase Proprietary Platform, because the issue is one of control. If a single vendor gains control of the "market" for web browsers, as Microsoft did for a while, you are at their mercy. If there are multiple, competing web browsers and control of the APIs (e.g. HTML, CSS, JS) is decentralized, you are at the mercy of the whims of the marketplace, but no one person can wake up in the morning and decide to shut you out. The concerns raised in this post are isomorphic to Apple's concerns about Flash. They don't mind developers using web standards to develop apps because no one vendor controls HTML, CSS, and JS. If developers write their apps in HTML, JS, and CSS, Adobe cannot flip a switch overnight and break every app on iPhone because their proprietary tools no longer emit a flavour of JS that runs on iPhone without errors. So... Proprietary Platforms are for Suckers.
- WiseWeasel 16y ago
  I'd say the true target of this criticism is content-aware platforms, as opposed to content-neutral platforms, which I believe are what people often mean when they talk about "closed" and "open" platforms. The author favorably mentions targeting Windows and Mac OS, which certainly are proprietary, but they do not restrict the user of any content, essentially dumb pipes from hardware to content; these content-neutral platforms would be OK to build a business on. Platforms mentioned as bad were the iPhone, Twitter and Facebook, platforms where the vendor can and does restrict their users' access to content via arbitrary changes to their usage licenses, and such content-aware platforms are shaky grounds to build a business on.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Well, MacOS and Windows may be "content-neutral" in a certain sense but historically both vendors have gone into competition with developers... So from my perspective "proprietary" means sleeping with an 800lb. gorilla, and all we are debating is whether the gorilla wants to eat you or simply rolled over in their sleep and crushed you by accident. http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/ http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/
webwright 16y ago
Google is certainly the biggest platform that people build on. How many businesses would die if their business had a catastrophic SEO failure tomorrow? The point of platforms is that they make things easier, which is something that most businesses desperately need. You just have make sure that you understand the risks-- but they are oftentimes worth it. Zynga would never have built what they've built without Facebook. Yelp would be a tiny fraction of what it is without Google. Quickbooks would have a rough time without Windows. That said, picking a really early platform has more risks (read: Twitter). Picking a platform run by a company that isn't really experienced being a platform (your Ventrilo example and, again, Twitter) has more risks. But punting platforms as a concept is just dumb. 85% of venture-backed startups are dead in 3 years. More than that, likely, in the bootstrapped world. You need every advantage you can get.
- joshu 16y ago
  Windows?
  - shadowsun7 16y ago
    Spolsky has a good essay on that (and how they've lost): http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html tl;dr version: Windows is a platform nobody wants to develop for. Windows developers have moved to the web (or to other platforms eg: Mac). The rest of the article justifies these two assertions.
extension 16y ago
I only write programs in my own custom programming language that run on my own in-house operating system. It only runs on computers that I design and manufacture myself. All the components are specially fabricated by me out of raw materials that are either synthesized in my lab or mined from my backyard. To spare you from the tyranny of the power company, it runs entirely off solar power, but it also comes with an emergency fusion reactor since the sun can just decide to go supernova any time it wants.
- mitchellhislop 16y ago
  Do you have any safeguards in place incase atoms decide not to produce energy when fused. If not, I have no trust in your platform
JMiao 16y ago
author's experience is creating an app around a "platform" developed by one person. you still have to pick the right platform to build for, you know.
billpaetzke 16y ago
How about Amazon S3/EC2 Services? Amazon seems pretty solid, stable, and flexible to me. And many startups are using them to scale.
- Psyonic 16y ago
  A good test is to ask yourself how hard it would be to switch to another provider. If it'd be very difficult and/or expensive, you should make sure that's a situation you're comfortable being in.
watmough 16y ago
Aside from the admitted fail in building their own software, there's some good points in this article. In the world outside software, avoiding platforms can be equally hard. If you sell lawnmowers, cheap meat, car parts, then you may depend on respectively WalMart, McDonalds, GM, which are all platforms in their own way. I wonder if there will be 'leakage' from iPhone software towards Mac software as the screws tighten somewhat on the App store.
maxklein 16y ago
There are some people who work well within platforms and some who work well outside of platforms. A platform, in many ways, levels the playing fields. It gives a bigger chance to us 'normals'. See, those who do well outside of platforms are those funny, smart people that are always the center of attraction. They somehow have this magical ability to get people to gather around them - they become they center of attention wherever they go. Those who do well within the platforms are the people who are willing to spend time studying the quirks of the platforms, and optimizing for it. Within a platform, the popular people who are usually the center of attention just by the force of their personality can get overshadowed by the meticulous researcher dude. So often, you'll find that people who are already popular and famous say to work outside of the platform. Those who know they are not the type of person to draw people to themselves by magic will prefer to work within a platform.
BerislavLopac 16y ago
Actually, the problem is not in platforms, but in proprietary platforms. As another commenter stated, it's turtles all the way down, but most of those turtles are either non-proprietary (HTML, Javascript, PHP, Apache, IBM architecture) or irrelevant to the application (it doesn't matter whether a Web application runs on Linux, Windows or MacOS). You always build on a stack of platforms, but the only one that matters is the one directly underneath your application. If it is proprietary, and/or you have no influence on the way it works, you might get into a trouble as described by Spencer.
blizkreeg 16y ago
I use Facebook Connect as the only way to register in my new venture site. I realize it is far less than ideal, however, we're just starting out and FB connect provides a really good way of getting genuine people and traffic. It cuts out spam by the ton and there is lesser resistance to 'sign up'. I agree though. Building on top of platforms is one way of being bitten in the derriere at some point.
moolave 16y ago
I give credit to the writer as an entrepreneur, but one thing he missed for sure is: platforms were made for an adaptable market. Maybe it was just the nature of their operation that didn't fit into the equation
Groxx 16y ago
See also: Platforms are for Suckers: Why you should build one, and sucker suckers into building their business on one.
mattmaroon 16y ago
This is silly. What was it Paul Buchheit called advice? Limited life experience + overgeneralization or something like that? That's exactly what this is. Platforms have their positives and negatives. What you should do depends on the unique combination of your goals and market forces. Broad, sweeping generalizations like this are sad because they miss the real point, which is that you should carefully consider potential future ramifications of building on a platform. Not that you shouldn't do it, but that you need to give serious thought about what success might mean.
houseabsolute 16y ago
> The granddaddy of all reasons, and the only one strong enough in itself to refute any contrary opinion . . . Setting himself up for failure by claiming that the coming point brooks no rational argument . . . > is that at any time Twitter, Facebook, etc., can make any change to their Terms of Service that their heart desires, leaving you high and dry. And fails. Although this is a reason to be wary of platforms, sometimes to have a business at all you have to build it under the dominant platform. This may not be true of your level of risk tolerance, but for some people a risky business is better than no business at all. I'm sure that Zynga's owners feel this way after their recent partnership agreement with Facebook.
ebiester 16y ago
If I could only be as great a sucker as Zynga... That said, it makes more sense, to me, to suggest that each business perform a cost/benefit analysis for every platform they use, and quantify risks. 1. For some business categories, such as games, you will be on a platform. Perform cost/benefit analysis for your market. Does flash make sense? Does ActiveX? What are your risks, and what are your benefits? (Some would suggest the game market itself is for suckers.) 2. Many platforms, such as Facebook, are glorified advertizing and lead generation. Do not create for these platforms, but rather advertize through it. The best example to me is PopCap Games, which directs people to their casual games through their flash games. 3. The further you wish to push the envelope, the more risk a platform entails. Porn? Be as independent as possible. Corporate apps? .NET is not your worry point.
clark-kent 16y ago
This is why I stay away from Google's App Engine. I don't get why Google keeps it closed source. At least with EC2 I'm only renting server hardware.
davidedicillo 16y ago
Building on platforms isn't a problem. It's actually pretty cool being able to use all these wonderful APIs. The problems start when your business is depending on one of them. If what you offer is a product that work on top of 10 platforms, it wouldn't be a big deal if one of them will shut you donw.
motters 16y ago
It's like building a house of cards. The most solid platforms are open standards, like HTML. Other platforms may be shakier, especially if they're controlled by a single individual or a single company who can change their mind at any time. If you build your business around open standards you're less likely to suffer from changes in terms of service of "platform providers".

91 points by dmitri1981 16y ago

As one of those people chiding you, I see now why you make the distinction between those two kinds of platforms. I do think you have a legitimate point, but I'm not sure how to fix this problem. There's so much potential in web platforms...

junklight 16y ago
I don't think you can fix it. You take risks all along the continuum - if you are standalone you have more control but you need to get user buy in. If you go to a busy popular platform then you risk falling into the sinking sands caused by someone elses control. in both cases people will fail from things out with their control - its just easier to point at if its someone else changing the rules. (and easier to grumble about) edit: like the guy above says - you need to tailor your risk. On someone else's platform - look for quick rewards and work on the basis its only a matter of time until it goes away

gyardley 16y ago

Amen. My startup's too dependent on a single platform right now, and we're being burnt by it. What platforms are for is speedy cash. The access you'll get to large numbers of people is a great help. Just keep your efforts cheap and dirty and put the money in your pocket as soon as you get it.

pacemkr 16y ago
I could not agree more. I am also dependent on a single platform and am acutely aware of the fact that this is not a good long term (6 mo +) investment of my time. However, building for a popular platform is a good way to make some quick cash without having to worry about anything but the quality of your product (ie. getting discovered, marketing, payment processing, etc.)
- stcredzero 16y ago
  Is a meta-platform possible? Leaving 3.3.1 aside, what about a company acting as a clearinghouse that takes care of all of the platform issues for you, submits your app, markets it, takes care of payment. Perhaps this is possible with Javascript web apps for mobile devices?

henning 16y ago

Ventrilo's popularity is a priori evidence of how fucking dumb gamers are.

stcredzero 16y ago
Language! But that said, the popularity of MMOs, with game dynamics all too similar to slot machines and resort casinos isn't a good sign. (I say this as a former Eve Online addict.)

patio11 16y ago

I largely agree with the thesis, but can't seem to get my head around marketing on the open Internet without being tied body and soul to the Google platform.

percept 16y ago
Agreed. If anybody has some good ideas/links about this, please share.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  Why are Bing and Yahoo not viable alternatives? Is it because your competition will out-market you using the better Google platform?
  - patio11 16y ago
    Why are Bing and Yahoo not viable alternatives? Mostly because they have decisively lost the search market in the United States. I deal with one of the most non-technical niches imaginable, and Google gives me 10x the traffic that Bing does. (It is an interesting question of whether this is solely because Google is crushing Bing in market share, or if it is a reflection of adaptation of my business to meet Google's demands. That is largely academic, though. Its a factor of freaking ten. Bing and Yahoo could both go dark tomorrow permanently and I might not even notice. The last time Google went dark, for 45 minutes, I started fielding customer support queries about how I "broke the Internet". And while that is amusing phrasing, I don't think it is false. Google is navigation on the open Internet. (Insert obligatory disclaimer: for English speaking Americans. It is a bit different in Japan. It is even more lopsided in the UK in Google's favor.) Edit to add: Do not get me started on their PPC services. Its like Bill Gates said "We want this to have the technical chops of Google and the dedication to service of a convent!" and the memo got horribly, horribly misread.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      Does Microsoft know that Bing lost? (Maybe from their POV, it's just waiting in the wings.)

tjmaxal 16y ago

This may seem like an oversimplification but like the article says all web apps are built on browsers and all browsers are built on an OS and all OSes are built on hardware, all hardware is built on a chip set etc, etc, etc, till you get down to the fact that all of it runs on electricity. It seems like it's turtles all the way down.

patio11 16y ago
That is an oversimplification, in important respects. There are multiple competing options for most of those platforms, responsibility for them is diffuse, and change happens very gradually. I mean, yes, technically speaking, I am dependent on electricity. But that doesn't mean there is a $8 an hour representative at the power company whose job is to shut down 24 businesses today to preserve the power company's vision for what proper use of electricity looks like, and whose decision is beyond repeal.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  That is an oversimplification, in important respects. It's not so much the fact of a platform. It's the nature of the ecosystem that lives on that platform. How open is it? Is it subject to whims and sudden change? Are these alternatives? Are there open standards? Is there competition between implementations?
- fierarul 16y ago
  > That is an oversimplification, in important respects. There are multiple competing options for most of those platforms, responsibility for them is diffuse, and change happens very gradually. Also, at some point it's not platform, it's infrastructure. You could assume that your business will use credit cards and online payment since this is part of the infrastructure but when you are using the payment API of company MegaCorp to have those payments, you might get burned with their particular Platform. > I mean, yes, technically speaking, I am dependent on electricity. But that doesn't mean there is a $8 an hour representative at the power company whose job is to shut down 24 businesses today to preserve the power company's vision for what proper use of electricity looks like, and whose decision is beyond repeal. This isn't a good comparison. The thing is the electricity provider is much more regulated by laws, more stable and slower in changes compared to some other companies. Also -- it's infrastructure. Technically, some "power company vision" is kept since you can't actually put any two wires to make a gizmo and sell it on the market as a product. Another interesting factoid: home users have a limit on how much electricity you can consume. After a given limit you have to ask special permit from the electricity provider and probably pay extra. The trick is all these things are stipulated somewhere and public.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

stcredzero 16y ago
Here's how I read what he's saying: "Platform = Middleman. Don't be a sucker, be a middleman! They outsource the risk and get it all in the end."
- Psyonic 16y ago
  "The Art of Good Business Is Being A Good Middleman." -- Layer Cake
spencerfry 16y ago
"... and if you can't build what the platform provides -- give up!" That's not actually my point at all. The reason GameComm failed is that it wasn't a web app. It was desktop software. That's just a whole different ballgame and something I definitely wasn't familiar with. Is Spencer suggesting companies should attempt to build their own iPhones? Build their own Facebook? Build their own Twitter. In an essence, yes. You should make sure you build all of your core functionality in-house and not rely on other platforms for it. If you don't then you're going to run into similar problems that I had and others have.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

TotlolRon 16y ago

"If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." -- Sir Isaac Newton

raganwald 16y ago
One of the suggestions is that this was intended as an insult to a rival, Hooke, who was short and hunchbacked. Although popular, this suggestion has been disputed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Fame http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Fame

Raphael 16y ago

Commercial platforms are for suckers. Open platforms are huge wins.

stakent 16y ago
Can we have examples of open platforms, please?
- jauer 16y ago
  So far as easy to deploy webstack platforms go, Joyent's SmartPlatform seems to be open: http://www.joyent.com/technology/smartplatform/ http://www.joyent.com/technology/smartplatform/ Code on github to run your own instance: http://github.com/joyent/smart-platform/ http://github.com/joyent/smart-platform/

raganwald 16y ago

I like everything about the post except for the word "platform." That is an overly broad word that does mean web browsers and the Internet itself and electricity. I prefer the phrase Proprietary Platform, because the issue is one of control. If a single vendor gains control of the "market" for web browsers, as Microsoft did for a while, you are at their mercy. If there are multiple, competing web browsers and control of the APIs (e.g. HTML, CSS, JS) is decentralized, you are at the mercy of the whims of the marketplace, but no one person can wake up in the morning and decide to shut you out. The concerns raised in this post are isomorphic to Apple's concerns about Flash. They don't mind developers using web standards to develop apps because no one vendor controls HTML, CSS, and JS. If developers write their apps in HTML, JS, and CSS, Adobe cannot flip a switch overnight and break every app on iPhone because their proprietary tools no longer emit a flavour of JS that runs on iPhone without errors. So... Proprietary Platforms are for Suckers.

WiseWeasel 16y ago
I'd say the true target of this criticism is content-aware platforms, as opposed to content-neutral platforms, which I believe are what people often mean when they talk about "closed" and "open" platforms. The author favorably mentions targeting Windows and Mac OS, which certainly are proprietary, but they do not restrict the user of any content, essentially dumb pipes from hardware to content; these content-neutral platforms would be OK to build a business on. Platforms mentioned as bad were the iPhone, Twitter and Facebook, platforms where the vendor can and does restrict their users' access to content via arbitrary changes to their usage licenses, and such content-aware platforms are shaky grounds to build a business on.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Well, MacOS and Windows may be "content-neutral" in a certain sense but historically both vendors have gone into competition with developers... So from my perspective "proprietary" means sleeping with an 800lb. gorilla, and all we are debating is whether the gorilla wants to eat you or simply rolled over in their sleep and crushed you by accident. http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/ http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/

webwright 16y ago

Google is certainly the biggest platform that people build on. How many businesses would die if their business had a catastrophic SEO failure tomorrow? The point of platforms is that they make things easier, which is something that most businesses desperately need. You just have make sure that you understand the risks-- but they are oftentimes worth it. Zynga would never have built what they've built without Facebook. Yelp would be a tiny fraction of what it is without Google. Quickbooks would have a rough time without Windows. That said, picking a really early platform has more risks (read: Twitter). Picking a platform run by a company that isn't really experienced being a platform (your Ventrilo example and, again, Twitter) has more risks. But punting platforms as a concept is just dumb. 85% of venture-backed startups are dead in 3 years. More than that, likely, in the bootstrapped world. You need every advantage you can get.

joshu 16y ago
Windows?
- shadowsun7 16y ago
  Spolsky has a good essay on that (and how they've lost): http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html tl;dr version: Windows is a platform nobody wants to develop for. Windows developers have moved to the web (or to other platforms eg: Mac). The rest of the article justifies these two assertions.

extension 16y ago

I only write programs in my own custom programming language that run on my own in-house operating system. It only runs on computers that I design and manufacture myself. All the components are specially fabricated by me out of raw materials that are either synthesized in my lab or mined from my backyard. To spare you from the tyranny of the power company, it runs entirely off solar power, but it also comes with an emergency fusion reactor since the sun can just decide to go supernova any time it wants.

mitchellhislop 16y ago
Do you have any safeguards in place incase atoms decide not to produce energy when fused. If not, I have no trust in your platform

JMiao 16y ago

author's experience is creating an app around a "platform" developed by one person. you still have to pick the right platform to build for, you know.

billpaetzke 16y ago

How about Amazon S3/EC2 Services? Amazon seems pretty solid, stable, and flexible to me. And many startups are using them to scale.

Psyonic 16y ago
A good test is to ask yourself how hard it would be to switch to another provider. If it'd be very difficult and/or expensive, you should make sure that's a situation you're comfortable being in.

watmough 16y ago

Aside from the admitted fail in building their own software, there's some good points in this article. In the world outside software, avoiding platforms can be equally hard. If you sell lawnmowers, cheap meat, car parts, then you may depend on respectively WalMart, McDonalds, GM, which are all platforms in their own way. I wonder if there will be 'leakage' from iPhone software towards Mac software as the screws tighten somewhat on the App store.

maxklein 16y ago

There are some people who work well within platforms and some who work well outside of platforms. A platform, in many ways, levels the playing fields. It gives a bigger chance to us 'normals'. See, those who do well outside of platforms are those funny, smart people that are always the center of attraction. They somehow have this magical ability to get people to gather around them - they become they center of attention wherever they go. Those who do well within the platforms are the people who are willing to spend time studying the quirks of the platforms, and optimizing for it. Within a platform, the popular people who are usually the center of attention just by the force of their personality can get overshadowed by the meticulous researcher dude. So often, you'll find that people who are already popular and famous say to work outside of the platform. Those who know they are not the type of person to draw people to themselves by magic will prefer to work within a platform.

BerislavLopac 16y ago

Actually, the problem is not in platforms, but in proprietary platforms. As another commenter stated, it's turtles all the way down, but most of those turtles are either non-proprietary (HTML, Javascript, PHP, Apache, IBM architecture) or irrelevant to the application (it doesn't matter whether a Web application runs on Linux, Windows or MacOS). You always build on a stack of platforms, but the only one that matters is the one directly underneath your application. If it is proprietary, and/or you have no influence on the way it works, you might get into a trouble as described by Spencer.

blizkreeg 16y ago

I use Facebook Connect as the only way to register in my new venture site. I realize it is far less than ideal, however, we're just starting out and FB connect provides a really good way of getting genuine people and traffic. It cuts out spam by the ton and there is lesser resistance to 'sign up'. I agree though. Building on top of platforms is one way of being bitten in the derriere at some point.

moolave 16y ago

I give credit to the writer as an entrepreneur, but one thing he missed for sure is: platforms were made for an adaptable market. Maybe it was just the nature of their operation that didn't fit into the equation

Groxx 16y ago

See also: Platforms are for Suckers: Why you should build one, and sucker suckers into building their business on one.

mattmaroon 16y ago

This is silly. What was it Paul Buchheit called advice? Limited life experience + overgeneralization or something like that? That's exactly what this is. Platforms have their positives and negatives. What you should do depends on the unique combination of your goals and market forces. Broad, sweeping generalizations like this are sad because they miss the real point, which is that you should carefully consider potential future ramifications of building on a platform. Not that you shouldn't do it, but that you need to give serious thought about what success might mean.

houseabsolute 16y ago

> The granddaddy of all reasons, and the only one strong enough in itself to refute any contrary opinion . . . Setting himself up for failure by claiming that the coming point brooks no rational argument . . . > is that at any time Twitter, Facebook, etc., can make any change to their Terms of Service that their heart desires, leaving you high and dry. And fails. Although this is a reason to be wary of platforms, sometimes to have a business at all you have to build it under the dominant platform. This may not be true of your level of risk tolerance, but for some people a risky business is better than no business at all. I'm sure that Zynga's owners feel this way after their recent partnership agreement with Facebook.

ebiester 16y ago

If I could only be as great a sucker as Zynga... That said, it makes more sense, to me, to suggest that each business perform a cost/benefit analysis for every platform they use, and quantify risks. 1. For some business categories, such as games, you will be on a platform. Perform cost/benefit analysis for your market. Does flash make sense? Does ActiveX? What are your risks, and what are your benefits? (Some would suggest the game market itself is for suckers.) 2. Many platforms, such as Facebook, are glorified advertizing and lead generation. Do not create for these platforms, but rather advertize through it. The best example to me is PopCap Games, which directs people to their casual games through their flash games. 3. The further you wish to push the envelope, the more risk a platform entails. Porn? Be as independent as possible. Corporate apps? .NET is not your worry point.

clark-kent 16y ago

This is why I stay away from Google's App Engine. I don't get why Google keeps it closed source. At least with EC2 I'm only renting server hardware.

davidedicillo 16y ago

Building on platforms isn't a problem. It's actually pretty cool being able to use all these wonderful APIs. The problems start when your business is depending on one of them. If what you offer is a product that work on top of 10 platforms, it wouldn't be a big deal if one of them will shut you donw.

motters 16y ago

It's like building a house of cards. The most solid platforms are open standards, like HTML. Other platforms may be shakier, especially if they're controlled by a single individual or a single company who can change their mind at any time. If you build your business around open standards you're less likely to suffer from changes in terms of service of "platform providers".