7 ms·

More companies than that, and large ones. These are just the ones that went public... some of them don't want you to know their trust/safety/moderation features

by jquery 8y ago

More companies than that, and large ones. These are just the ones that went public... some of them don't want you to know their trust/safety/moderation features just went dark. Smyte just ruined a lot of people's day(s).

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
Twitter. Twitter just ruined a lot of people’s days.
- chris_wot 8y ago
  Twitter has ruined a lot of people's days for a long time now. Especially in the Trump era. Nothing new here!
  - workinthehead 8y ago
    Not sure why you are being downvoted since Twitter has a well-established history of pulling the rug out from under people who depend on it.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- kentonv 8y ago
  No. Smyte had a responsibility to its customers, and should not have entered into any deal that did not include some reasonable wind-down plan.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    Have we read the contract? Do we know what happened?
  - PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
    What about blaming the companies who decided to depend upon a service that they have no control over? I find arguing against using third party APIs to save a few days of development a constantly losing battle, with it being presented as a benefit with no costs or risks. Do those pushing/agreeing with such a view not share some blame?
    - Bartweiss 8y ago
      > that they have no control over Per the article, they did at least have long-term contracts locked in with Smyte. That's not the same as control over the feature, obviously, but plenty of companies do business on the strength of contracts instead of vertically integrating their entire product. Obviously we don't have many details yet, but I think there's a real difference between simply using a third party API that works for the moment, and buying a service from a third party. If Twitter/Smyte simply broke contract with all their existing customers, that's very much their responsibility.
    - brazzledazzle 8y ago
      This isn’t really a leftpad issue. This was for fraud prevention.
    - paranoidrobot 8y ago
      > What about blaming the companies who decided to depend upon a service that they have no control over? Unless you're advocating against any kind of *aaS, this is kind of a silly argument. A lot of these services are not "a few days of development" worth of work. The value in these is that they have dedicated teams of people who's entire job is to run that specific targeted thing. Unless you're willing to also invest in major development, it's going to be difficult to match that functionality. Obviously when you make your product/company depend upon these things, you're taking a risk that they could go away, but you protect yourself against that by having robust contracts. Outages are different, but for a significant outage you expect to see some kind of RFO and explanation of how they're going to mitigate it. Deliberately withdrawing service for all customers with 30 minutes notice? That's entirely the fault of whomever is in charge at Smyte. Even 30 days, while it'd probably ruin some existing plans, would at least allow people to have a chance to migrate without things just breaking.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    Twitter is the one responsible now.
  - munificent 8y ago
    Had. Twitter owns Smyte. When you buy a company, you acquire all of its responsibilities. There is no longer a Smyte to point the finger at. It's all Twitter.
    - kentonv 8y ago
      This is pedantic. "Smyte" means "the people who formerly made up Smyte, especially the founders".
      - ShabbosGoy 8y ago
        Legally, the onus is on Twitter for pulling the plug on an API that was being used actively without much notice. I’m actually surprised that it was done in this manner, as many startups have a “business continuity” section in whatever contracts are drawn up with customers, detailing the specific steps and timeframe of retiring a particular service. I would have thought this is standard practice for a SaaS company.
      - munificent 8y ago
        My point was that we shouldn't point the finger at Smyte because that lets the blame drop on the floor when the "Smyte" brand evaporates. Twitter owns this now and the way to ensure it's their reputation that is affected over the long term is by correctly calling this a "Twitter" failure.

by jquery 8y ago

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago

Twitter. Twitter just ruined a lot of people’s days.

chris_wot 8y ago
Twitter has ruined a lot of people's days for a long time now. Especially in the Trump era. Nothing new here!
- workinthehead 8y ago
  Not sure why you are being downvoted since Twitter has a well-established history of pulling the rug out from under people who depend on it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
kentonv 8y ago
No. Smyte had a responsibility to its customers, and should not have entered into any deal that did not include some reasonable wind-down plan.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  Have we read the contract? Do we know what happened?
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
  What about blaming the companies who decided to depend upon a service that they have no control over? I find arguing against using third party APIs to save a few days of development a constantly losing battle, with it being presented as a benefit with no costs or risks. Do those pushing/agreeing with such a view not share some blame?
  - Bartweiss 8y ago
    > that they have no control over Per the article, they did at least have long-term contracts locked in with Smyte. That's not the same as control over the feature, obviously, but plenty of companies do business on the strength of contracts instead of vertically integrating their entire product. Obviously we don't have many details yet, but I think there's a real difference between simply using a third party API that works for the moment, and buying a service from a third party. If Twitter/Smyte simply broke contract with all their existing customers, that's very much their responsibility.
  - brazzledazzle 8y ago
    This isn’t really a leftpad issue. This was for fraud prevention.
  - paranoidrobot 8y ago
    > What about blaming the companies who decided to depend upon a service that they have no control over? Unless you're advocating against any kind of *aaS, this is kind of a silly argument. A lot of these services are not "a few days of development" worth of work. The value in these is that they have dedicated teams of people who's entire job is to run that specific targeted thing. Unless you're willing to also invest in major development, it's going to be difficult to match that functionality. Obviously when you make your product/company depend upon these things, you're taking a risk that they could go away, but you protect yourself against that by having robust contracts. Outages are different, but for a significant outage you expect to see some kind of RFO and explanation of how they're going to mitigate it. Deliberately withdrawing service for all customers with 30 minutes notice? That's entirely the fault of whomever is in charge at Smyte. Even 30 days, while it'd probably ruin some existing plans, would at least allow people to have a chance to migrate without things just breaking.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Twitter is the one responsible now.
- munificent 8y ago
  Had. Twitter owns Smyte. When you buy a company, you acquire all of its responsibilities. There is no longer a Smyte to point the finger at. It's all Twitter.
  - kentonv 8y ago
    This is pedantic. "Smyte" means "the people who formerly made up Smyte, especially the founders".
    - ShabbosGoy 8y ago
      Legally, the onus is on Twitter for pulling the plug on an API that was being used actively without much notice. I’m actually surprised that it was done in this manner, as many startups have a “business continuity” section in whatever contracts are drawn up with customers, detailing the specific steps and timeframe of retiring a particular service. I would have thought this is standard practice for a SaaS company.
    - munificent 8y ago
      My point was that we shouldn't point the finger at Smyte because that lets the blame drop on the floor when the "Smyte" brand evaporates. Twitter owns this now and the way to ensure it's their reputation that is affected over the long term is by correctly calling this a "Twitter" failure.