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Facebook ends platform policy banning apps that copy its features
- elcomet 8y agoThis is awesome. Maybe then we can finally have a separate group / events app without getting the crappy Facebook feed and notifications. I think most people use facebook either for messenger, or for the group and event features.
- matthuggins 8y agoFunny, I use Facebook for the exact inverse of this. I actively avoid messenger, group, and event features. I use it to keep in touch with family and share family photos.
- elcomet 8y agoDon't you share your family photos in a group? Then you and I have the same use (except for the events). Or do you share your family photos with all your friends?
- filoleg 8y agoIt already exists, and is made by FB. It is called Local, and I’ve been using it exclusively for almost 2 years so far. Haven’t had the actual FB app installed on my phones in forever, as Local+Messenger combo satisfies all my FB-related needs.
- elcomet 8y agoLocal doesn't work for managing your groups I think, it is restricted to events isn't it ?
- npunt 8y agoYa Local is just events. But it is quite a good app.
- jshc 8y agothere's also a facebook app called Group
- throwmeback 8y agoI don't have it on my Play Store. Are you sure?
- aylmao 8y ago+1. A lightweight events app that also features better Calendar integration would be fantastic. If I sync events with my calendar now I need to log-in to Facebook to change my RSVP response. Event suggestions only if they don't conflict with my calendar and a way to convert calendar events to Facebook events to share with friends would be killer features too.
- blatherard 8y ago> The move will significantly reduce the risk of building on the Facebook platform. What's to stop them from reversing the policy change? Once bitten, twice shy.
- cma 8y agoThey put an enforceable promise in there that they wouldn't do that. Wait no, they could have but didn't.
- Spivak 8y agoWhy would a company ever impose binding restrictions on itself?
- function_seven 8y agoWhen they’ve already burned their reputation and need to convince portential partners that they won’t do it again. I can’t think of any real world examples, though. So this is all hypothetical.
- kennxfl 8y agoIt's a PR move. Probably proposed by one of many third party agencies that Sandberg 'wasn't aware of but takes full responsibility for'.
- aylmao 8y agoI think it's more likely this is to avoid problems with the slew of dating apps that depend on Facebook now that they're starting to roll out their dating feature.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoTo convince customers that they're not just trying to trick them?
- michaelt 8y ago
- gojomo 8y agoAlas, they can still add and remove such a policy, or tuned variants thereof, at their own discretion at any time. And have done so in the past. And would be keenly motivated to do so in the future. So them not-having-the-policy on a particular day N isn't really much comfort for those who'd like to build functionality for day N+1, when Facebook may have rewritten the rules to its own advantage again. Will they contractually commit to a policy for a specified period of time?
- CGamesPlay 8y agoSo Facebook realizes that it’s namesake website isn’t producing as much value as it used to, and that by enabling users to customize their experience they retain control of the data. But how can they monetize the third party apps? Acquisitions? Betting most users will continue using the core website?
- freyir 8y ago> Betting most users will continue using the core website? This is my guess. A desperate attempt to bring back its core users.
- sehugg 8y agoGood idea, they'll get even more data on emerging competitors than they used to get from their traffic-sniffing VPN app before Apple pulled it from the App Store a few months ago: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/12/facebook-starts-pushing-its-data-tracking-onavo-vpn-within-its-main-mobile-app/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/12/facebook-starts-pushing-it...
- elliekelly 8y agoa Facebook VPN? what an oxymoron. how is this not a bigger story/discussion?
- RhodesianHunter 8y agoIt was pretty big news at the time, but this being the year of outrageous news and all...
- slackoverflower 8y agoOf course Facebook would made this change now. They have the freedom to do this now. They have effectively won social at this point. They control 3 of the biggest mobile social apps in the world: Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook itself. No startup really poses a realistic threat to them anymore. This policy change is just FB saving face in the eyes of regulators (and developers like here on HN).
- hayksaakian 8y agoI think you're getting ahead of yourself. TikTok stands a real chance to dethrone them over the next X years.
- sincerely 8y agoI thought TikTok was sort of like, Vine mixed with Musical.ly - is it a robust enough offering to do messaging/events/groups/marketplace, etc?
- lozaning 8y agoI dont see my HAM radio group making the transition from FB to TikTok.
- dgoldstein0 8y agoIirc tiktok is just an evolution of musical.ly
- lozaning 8y agoI think TikTok is going to have the staying power of vine. While Im glad for the people that enjoy tiktok type content have an app where they can create and consume this kind of content, it offers no appeal to me.
- elliekelly 8y agoFacebook's market position is certainly enviable but I (perhaps naively) think they will eventually be dethroned. WalMart was the retail king... until Amazon came along. I haven't heard a "WalMart kills small businesses" rant in at least five years. They've been replaced. Facebook will eventually suffer the same fate.
- npunt 8y ago"We've run out of ideas for how to improve Facebook. Maybe we should let developers come up with some ideas again so we can copy them."
- raspo 8y agoExactly what I thought. "... and then, once we are satisfied for a couple more years, we can put the same policy back into place"
- Gokenstein 8y agoSpeaking of platforms: In the Bernstein timeline someone went to Stockholm and convinced Notch that a cross between Steam and Kiva kicks off the next cultural revolution and all we need is a little “mancala money”
- wlesieutre 8y agoI doubt they need to, copying successful features is enough since their own version is the default and they can jam it in users faces in ways that third parties can't. And just like their acquisitions based on Onvao data, they'll have a whole lot of information on what ideas are worth stealing.
- aylmao 8y agoMore so than for copying, my guess is that with the release of the dating feature this policy could've probably caused tensions and legal problems with essentially all other dating apps out there. Dating apps heavily use Facebook not only to get hard-to-fake user info (age/real name) and content for a profile (photos/likes), but also to provide some validity to profiles since Facebook and the social graph in general do a good job of keeping bots and fake profiles at bay, and users know that. Nonetheless, this could've certainly raised anti-competitive concerns, and Facebook probably figured they are in a dominant-enough position that saving the scrutiny is worth the risk.
- joeblau 8y agoYeah this is the same thing I thought as well. It worked well for Twitter.
- booleandilemma 8y agoWhat next? FBML again?
- DonHopkins 8y agoHeavens no: FBSON FTW!
- subdane 8y agoReminded of this Chamath quote attributed to Bill Gates in an interview with Semil Shah about Facebook's platform. "I remember when we raised money from Bill Gates...and Gates said something along the lines of, 'That’s a crock of shit. This isn’t a platform. A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the company that creates it. Then it’s a platform.'" http://haystack.vc/2015/09/17/transcript-chamath-at-strictlyvcs-insider-series/ http://haystack.vc/2015/09/17/transcript-chamath-at-strictly...
- mehblahwhatevs 8y ago> "I remember when we raised money from Bill Gates...and Gates said something along the lines of, 'That’s a crock of shit. This isn’t a platform. A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the company that creates it. Then it’s a platform.'" Interesting. But Facebook's platform != Facebook, so I don't understand the maxim that "the value of everybody that uses the platform must exceed the value of the company that created it" in order for it to be true. You could say Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store are platforms, they even offer services (api/web-services, libs, frameworks, etc.) and devs build on-top and make living off it. But that ISN'T the company. Google has search, cars, ads, etc. Apple has it's own crap going. Furthermore, Apple is worth 1 trillion dollars. Must the value of the platform as determined by "everybody that uses it" exceed 1 trillion? Or must it exceed the yearly revenue of Apple instead?
- cityzen 8y agoRight they are a multinational advertising corporation that tricks people into believing that Facebook.com = Facebook. It’s still a crock of shit however you want to slice it up.
- Benjammer 8y agoI believe this use of the word "platform" in this context is a much more specific meaning where it's a counterpoint to the idea of an "aggregator." It comes up in discussions about modern large tech companies being "aggregators" or "platforms," and this is the point (allegedly) Gates is making here, that Facebook is much more an aggregator of content that users bring into the walled garden than they are an economic platform for other businesses, which is what Microsoft was/is.
- electic 8y agoThe amount of companies that have been burned from Facebook is staggering. And it not just fasgarewq
- akabaka777 8y agoThat's it. I'm leaving anything related to facebook. I mean a company should have minimum level of ethics. This is a absolute trash of a company.
- everythingisbad 8y agoHow is this, of ALL things unethical?
- cortesoft 8y agoSo you didn't leave when they HAD the policy banning competitors, but decide to leave when the remove the ban?
- unclebucknasty 8y agoSounds rational to me. To GP's point, at least the former policy was somewhat honest. By announcing this "reversal" it's like a lie that involves time travel. That is, they just lied again, and will prove it so at some future point.
- Mtinie 8y agoBecause the ban limited their “ideas to clone” surface area and then someone realized it was a stupid move because they are out of substantive ideas to push the product forward?
- mmmmmmmmm 8y agoAre you a bot? It makes no sense for you to be so mad about something so innocuous.
- laythea 8y agoI think this is facebook getting scared of regulation and so thinking that if facebook's "features" get adopted more so, then they can be pinpointed by authorities less. My thoughts only.
- cc439 8y agoThis announcement comes just days after FB hired a crack team of anti-trust defense lawyers, of course it's a move to defend against potential regulation/litigation. I'm not saying their defense team caused this change either, just that there this fits a pattern that shows FB's leadership is very concerned about potential government action against them.
- rhizome 8y agoTo whatever degree that's true, I would assume it's to get some momentum of support -- dependency if you will -- generated to peel off some of the people who would just as soon see FB go the way of Friendster. Purely usage juicing.
- propman 8y agoSo Facebook copies every major app and service and then destroys its lifeline immediately killing the work of creators who innovated. Immediately after that Facebook copies the exact same service resulting in little risk, ingenuity and an almost certainty of success. Sad truth is many great developers will trust them again because there’s a huge opportunity here but they’ll be smarter this time around. Don’t put all the eggs in the same basket and plan ahead a solid pivot when (not if) Facebook renegs.
- vezycash 8y ago>they’ll be smarter this time around. Nah. There's a fool born every second. Just 5% of developers actually follow tech news. The rest have allowed their jobs to take over their lives. If people bothered to pay attention to the past, the world would be a much better place. Google, Apple, FB... wouldn't be this dominant because we would have learned from the recent past.
- JonathanMerklin 8y agoSource on that 5% figure? Can't find it with a couple of quick searches.
- vezycash 8y agoMade an estimate from my personal experience. Simply saying, "only a fraction of developers..." would be a weaker statement.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoI consider more accurate statements to be stronger statements.
- basicplus2 8y agoCould lead to turtles all the in.. infinite recursion to the centre...
- chasing 8y agoFacebook is acting scared.
- burtonator 8y agoThis is great timing. My new startup, EvilCorp is just about to launch a new social platform where we give your private data directly to Russians trying to subvert our Democracy. Now we can just launch directly on Facebook since they no longer ban us from copying this core feature.
- kennxfl 8y agoEven if you were targeted with racist misinformation, isn't it your responsibility not to be easily convinced?
- superioritycplx 8y agoIf $50K worth of facebook ads can "subvert a democracy" then we have a very serious problem on our hands.
- te_chris 8y agoEvidence would say this isn't the most secure form of defense for our societies.
- whack 8y agoI would say it's our responsibility to have an electoral system that can't be so easily fooled https://outlookzen.com/2018/11/18/a-democracy-that-cannot-be-hacked/ https://outlookzen.com/2018/11/18/a-democracy-that-cannot-be...
- discordance 8y agoGreat, if anyone has any spare cycles - please rip out Events from Facebook into another app so I don't have to open Facebook anymore.
- jamesk14022 8y agoThis and messenger are the only reasons I haven't closed my account.
- runeb 8y agoSame, but recently discovered you can continue using Messenger if you deactivate your account.
- amelius 8y agoThat might not be the case. A friend recently closed her account and I found out because Messenger gave an error (of course the type of error that really didn't convey what happened, but that's another story).
- jrickert 8y agoThey did, check out the Local app they released.
- dmitriid 8y agoYou still can't create events via third-party apps.
- stevenicr 8y agoThis! Similar events is the only thing I miss about fbook. I was told that an app / site "bandsNearMe" or something like that would replace.. but I don't think it's gets the smaller acts / DJs / events that I would really like to attend. Meetup does a better job of notifying me. As long as people are going to use fbook to post about upcoming events it would be nice to have access to things coming locally, since I rarely use fbook I miss some good shows.
- Mtinie 8y agoCue the beginning of the end. This is a strategic, not tactical decision, and one I wasn’t expecting Facebook to make anytime soon...unless they are in worse shape than even the naysayers suggest.
- mike22223333 8y agoAfter all these lies by this trash company, I hope no one falls for the trap. They lie, and lie and lie again. Zero shame. They can change the policy back at will just like Twitter when they feel like it. Don't develop on someone else's 'platform', especially if they have a shitty track record. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Edit: why is my comment flagged?
- onetimemanytime 8y agoFacebook: The Last Chapter They're becoming Yahoo...they need insane qtr to qtr growth or else its stock gets smashed, and takes everything else with it. Who wants to work for a has-been? Google escaped it by adding ads virtually on 100% of the page and added ads one by one on mobile pages and didn't do them much harm. How many ads are now on mobile, 4 or 5? Google still can monetize Maps and Translate and people are doing more of their stuff online. I guess FB can add more ads but "everyone" has or had FB so adding new users is a challenge. Not sure how Whatsapp can be monetized, in a way that is worth trying.
- rblion 8y agotoo little, too late. the exodus has already begun
- Justin_K 8y agoAnybody that builds an app on a "platform" that can be taken away overnight is a fool. Facebook has made it clear that if they want to change a policy, they could care less about your "business".
- tw04 8y agoSo literally everyone using a hosted service of any sort?
- vezycash 8y agoUsually the free sort. But even paid hosted services aren't exempt. Amazon competes with sellers on marketplace. And also competes with some of its cloud customers. The key is level of competition or dominance. It's wise to start looking for or creating alternatives when a company has less competition and becomes more dominant. Because if its power reaches a certain point, everyone loses. The company loses cos it won't innovate any more. Customers will lose on many fronts - customer service, features, stability, price, stupid restrictions...
- runeb 8y agoOff topic, but as a non-english native speaker the phrase "could care less" always bothers me as I read it literally to mean someone does indeed care, since they can care less. Is this one of those cases where the meaning changes through actual use like "literally" now meaning not necessarily "to be taken literally"?
- SwellJoe 8y agoThey had a platform. Then they killed it by killing anybody who did something better than them on the platform. Now they have a burned out husk of a platform. Who wants to live and work in that? The kids don't even like facebook, anymore (perhaps partly because it's been stagnant due to lack of fresh outside ideas, I dunno...it's not really my area, and I've always been ambivalent about facebook even when it was still cool).
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago"I hated Facebook before it was uncool" is certainly a new twist on an old trope.
- SwellJoe 8y ago"Ambivalent" is the word I used. I'm older than the original facebook demographic. I was well into adulthood when facebook took off. It took me a few years to even open an account, and then only because friends, mostly younger friends, were using it to organize stuff that I wanted to be involved in. I didn't hate it, I just didn't really see the point in it. I figured it was yet another social network that I could ignore forever, because it would fail in a few years to be replaced by the next social network.
- thefounder 8y agoYeah...ends the policy just to restart it later!
- mayurbhattit 8y agoJust check my article regarding Facebook Live https://thinkery.me/mayurbhattseo/5b7fddd81cb602f862000c50 https://thinkery.me/mayurbhattseo/5b7fddd81cb602f862000c50
- captainmuon 8y agoI'd have to read the actual policy, but i think this would enable two cool things: - Third party Facebook and messenger apps - Bridges between Facebook and other social networks (where you have a FB proxy account that you don't touch manually) Thinking of it, it seems unlikely that this is actually going to be allowed. More likely, they are talking about if Facebook makes e.g. their own Candy Crush, you are still allowed to keep the original on FB.
- aylmao 8y ago> - Third party Facebook and messenger apps Are private messages on the API though? I haven't checked recently, but a few years ago I remember they weren't or had just been removed. > - Bridges between Facebook and other social networks (where you have a FB proxy account that you don't touch manually) This could be interesting.
- throwmeback 8y agoI'd love a 3rd party Messenger client. I absolutely despise their app. It isn't even an IM client anymore - there are tons of irrelevant features that make it hard to use, e.g. the Games tab, the tab with bots and the Days. And for the love of whatever, please let me use my phone's camera app. Before you try to prove me wrong - are you sure you didn't just get used to it? Because I don't like to get used to stuff I don't like.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoI switched to Facebook's own Messenger Lite app a while back and it's a huge improvement. I think it's aimed at third world users but it does everything I need it to do.
- Karupan 8y agoDeleted my Facebook account long back, so I’m curious: are FB apps still a big thing? Is the quality any better because of stricter rules or is it pretty much the same?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- fbn79 8y agoFacebook API are becomed more irrilevant year after year. This change want change the situation.
- dmitriid 8y agoWait. There are apps on the Facebook platform? Haven't they crippled any and all capabilities of the platform by ensuring that you can't build anything useful on it?
- ppeetteerr 8y ago"It's a trap!" Facebook is a software company and any successful software built on top of it will be copied and integrated into the core platform. They are just looking for their next "inspiration"
- EnderMB 8y agoGiven all the awesome tech to come out of Facebook, I often wonder why their platform can be so hard to build against. I want to like this move, but a platform is only as good as its API, and for years their API offers have been poor. The Cambridge Analytica scandal didn't exactly help in this regard. This feels like a mixed message. One of wanting to be open, but also one of knowing that they can't allow access to personal data because they cannot (or will not) police its use. The cynic in me (and everyone else it seems) believes this is a regulation thing, and nothing to do with letting people build on their platform.