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word of warning to anyone who wants to integrate with facebook. although their blog posts say they are only removing select endpoints, as the comments in the li

word of warning to anyone who wants to integrate with facebook. although their blog posts say they are only removing select endpoints, as the comments in the link above indicate, they have basically shut off access to core endpoints well beyond what they listed. instead of errors, the endpoint returns empty data. this is extremely disappointing. our app was reviewed by FB (including source code), we have thousands of impacted users, and FB gave no indication that they would start doing this (and the issue was silent). is a walled garden better than an API that lets users share their data? should we shut down the entire graph because of a few bad actors? is this how FB treats developers?

tmh79 8y ago
yes, we should shut down the entire graph if it is leaking like a sieve, I don't understand why that is a question.
- solotronics 8y ago
  It's an ethical question as well as a financial and technical one. The answer probably depends on if you make money using peoples information or not.
  - LeifCarrotson 8y ago
    And the financial question has different answers for different entities - Developers who make money creating Facebook apps, Facebook who makes money from people who send data to and spend time on Facebook and on the Facebook apps developed by those developers, and advertisers.
losteric 8y ago
> is a walled garden better than an API that lets users share their data? should we shut down the entire graph because of a few bad actors? What is the social cost of those bad actors? What is the social benefit of "good" actors? How many integrations were simply neutral? I'm legitimately curious about who was using the API for the benefit of society, versus engagement/advertising (which is "neutral" at best).
Analemma_ 8y ago
> is this how FB treats developers? Yes? Look, I hate to be "I told you so", but this shouldn't be a surprise: this is how Facebook has treated partners all along. Remember when the big thing that drove engagement on Facebook was games? Zynga was making a mint on that. Until one day Facebook's metrics showed that the constant "Help my farm!" updates were pissing people off; they flipped a switch and games disappeared, and Zynga got kneecapped. I think it still technically exists, but it's a shell of what it was. Then it was all about sharing as many news articles as possible, and Facebook built all these relationships with news publishers. That lasted until fake news and Facebook deciding people want more status updates from friends, and the publishers all got their traffic slashed with naught but a "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further." When your business lives on Facebook's platform, you exist at their whim. As soon as they decide you're no longer useful, you're cut off. You really should've had a plan for this.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Not to mention the fact that that we've lived through all of this before with Twitter. Entire businesses were built on their API and then were obliterated in one fell swoop. Time to move on to the next thing, unfortunately.
  - LeifCarrotson 8y ago
    I'm out of the loop, what is the next walled garden everyone's playing in right now? Instagram? Snapchat? Youtube?
    - nkozyra 8y ago
      I'm hoping folks will have a "fool me twice" mentality with this. No API is permanent and no service will ever be reliable in this regard.
      - AznHisoka 8y ago
        On the other hand, there's been a decent number of people who have made lots of money because they were the first to build an useful product on a platform. Examples being Buffer, Hootsuite, BuddyMedia
tested24 8y ago
I wonder how many people that are claiming Facebook should shut off access to their api insult Apple for their walled garden in the same breath
- krausejj 8y ago
  yes but at least apple is consistent. when you spend time integrating with things, some level of predictability is important, no?
AznHisoka 8y ago
The cynical side of me says that Facebook realized awhile ago that the API was NOT helping them making any more money. If anything, it was preventing advertisers from spending more money, or using their own tools like Facebook Insights. Now that Cambridge happened, they're using this golden opportunity to shutdown the other API endpoints, so that they can keep more of the data, and advertisers will have to spend more money. If I'm being emphathetic, I'll say I'd even do the same thing if I was in Facebook's position right now.
- nkozyra 8y ago
  > The cynical side of me says that Facebook realized awhile ago that the API was NOT helping them making any more money. This is so hard to quantify. A developer ecosystem around your product helps build engagement and lock-in. It provides free testing ground for experiments with your data (for better or worse). A lot of people look at this as a "gift" to the developer community, but the relationship is symbiotic. Now, given where Facebook is, am I surprised? Hell no. Billions of investors' dollars went away (temporarily, surely) almost overnight[1]. Their reputation took a hit. They needed to do ... something, anything. I get that. But they didn't take a smart approach, likely because of the time constraint. The smart approach is lock down the parts of the graph that have the largest vectors for privacy invasion. Instead, they just hit the STOP button and are apparently calling it a day. In fact, there are some conflicting reports on some endpoints that officially will be up for review but privately have been discussed as permanently deprecated. I expect a walled garden. We saw this with Twitter for different reasons. The lesson - as a developer/entrepreneur - should be: never make another company a mission critical component of your own. If there's a rug to be pulled out from under you, one day it will be. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/facebook-has-lost-60-billion-in-value/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/facebook-has-lost-60-billi...
  - babesh 8y ago
    The developer ecosystem served its purpose for FB. It accelerated their growth to the mass market. It is probably a net negative nowadays. They have an ad business not a platform business.
m3kw9 8y ago
It’s analogous to an open hose with a few bad actors, in that case yes shut the hose and create a better one
downandout 8y ago
You should be working on trying to take back ownership of your relationship with your users from Facebook, and remove the API from any future business plans. Implement your services off of Facebook, and email your app users telling them your services have migrated to your website or mobile app. If it wasn’t obvious already, the API is being ground into dust, and it will only further deteriorate after GDPR takes effect.
_eht 8y ago
Social service API's have a rich history of treating developers poorly. Anyone building and relying on social API's should be prepared for and plan for when they start flipping switches with little or no warning. That's been my experience over the last eight years, anyway.

tmh79 8y ago

yes, we should shut down the entire graph if it is leaking like a sieve, I don't understand why that is a question.

solotronics 8y ago
It's an ethical question as well as a financial and technical one. The answer probably depends on if you make money using peoples information or not.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  And the financial question has different answers for different entities - Developers who make money creating Facebook apps, Facebook who makes money from people who send data to and spend time on Facebook and on the Facebook apps developed by those developers, and advertisers.

losteric 8y ago

> is a walled garden better than an API that lets users share their data? should we shut down the entire graph because of a few bad actors? What is the social cost of those bad actors? What is the social benefit of "good" actors? How many integrations were simply neutral? I'm legitimately curious about who was using the API for the benefit of society, versus engagement/advertising (which is "neutral" at best).

Analemma_ 8y ago

> is this how FB treats developers? Yes? Look, I hate to be "I told you so", but this shouldn't be a surprise: this is how Facebook has treated partners all along. Remember when the big thing that drove engagement on Facebook was games? Zynga was making a mint on that. Until one day Facebook's metrics showed that the constant "Help my farm!" updates were pissing people off; they flipped a switch and games disappeared, and Zynga got kneecapped. I think it still technically exists, but it's a shell of what it was. Then it was all about sharing as many news articles as possible, and Facebook built all these relationships with news publishers. That lasted until fake news and Facebook deciding people want more status updates from friends, and the publishers all got their traffic slashed with naught but a "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further." When your business lives on Facebook's platform, you exist at their whim. As soon as they decide you're no longer useful, you're cut off. You really should've had a plan for this.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
Not to mention the fact that that we've lived through all of this before with Twitter. Entire businesses were built on their API and then were obliterated in one fell swoop. Time to move on to the next thing, unfortunately.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  I'm out of the loop, what is the next walled garden everyone's playing in right now? Instagram? Snapchat? Youtube?
  - nkozyra 8y ago
    I'm hoping folks will have a "fool me twice" mentality with this. No API is permanent and no service will ever be reliable in this regard.
    - AznHisoka 8y ago
      On the other hand, there's been a decent number of people who have made lots of money because they were the first to build an useful product on a platform. Examples being Buffer, Hootsuite, BuddyMedia

tested24 8y ago

I wonder how many people that are claiming Facebook should shut off access to their api insult Apple for their walled garden in the same breath

krausejj 8y ago
yes but at least apple is consistent. when you spend time integrating with things, some level of predictability is important, no?

AznHisoka 8y ago

The cynical side of me says that Facebook realized awhile ago that the API was NOT helping them making any more money. If anything, it was preventing advertisers from spending more money, or using their own tools like Facebook Insights. Now that Cambridge happened, they're using this golden opportunity to shutdown the other API endpoints, so that they can keep more of the data, and advertisers will have to spend more money. If I'm being emphathetic, I'll say I'd even do the same thing if I was in Facebook's position right now.

nkozyra 8y ago
> The cynical side of me says that Facebook realized awhile ago that the API was NOT helping them making any more money. This is so hard to quantify. A developer ecosystem around your product helps build engagement and lock-in. It provides free testing ground for experiments with your data (for better or worse). A lot of people look at this as a "gift" to the developer community, but the relationship is symbiotic. Now, given where Facebook is, am I surprised? Hell no. Billions of investors' dollars went away (temporarily, surely) almost overnight[1]. Their reputation took a hit. They needed to do ... something, anything. I get that. But they didn't take a smart approach, likely because of the time constraint. The smart approach is lock down the parts of the graph that have the largest vectors for privacy invasion. Instead, they just hit the STOP button and are apparently calling it a day. In fact, there are some conflicting reports on some endpoints that officially will be up for review but privately have been discussed as permanently deprecated. I expect a walled garden. We saw this with Twitter for different reasons. The lesson - as a developer/entrepreneur - should be: never make another company a mission critical component of your own. If there's a rug to be pulled out from under you, one day it will be. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/facebook-has-lost-60-billion-in-value/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/facebook-has-lost-60-billi...
- babesh 8y ago
  The developer ecosystem served its purpose for FB. It accelerated their growth to the mass market. It is probably a net negative nowadays. They have an ad business not a platform business.

m3kw9 8y ago

It’s analogous to an open hose with a few bad actors, in that case yes shut the hose and create a better one

downandout 8y ago

You should be working on trying to take back ownership of your relationship with your users from Facebook, and remove the API from any future business plans. Implement your services off of Facebook, and email your app users telling them your services have migrated to your website or mobile app. If it wasn’t obvious already, the API is being ground into dust, and it will only further deteriorate after GDPR takes effect.

_eht 8y ago

Social service API's have a rich history of treating developers poorly. Anyone building and relying on social API's should be prepared for and plan for when they start flipping switches with little or no warning. That's been my experience over the last eight years, anyway.