There is no "platform" lesson here. The lesson is not to adopt risky business "models" based on wishful thinking. In one case, don't compete directly with the

There is no "platform" lesson here. The lesson is not to adopt risky business "models" based on wishful thinking. In one case, don't compete directly with the platform provider -- in the other case, it was never really a "platform" to begin with. If I make a mobile app for wide distribution, I will probably confine myself to iPhone, because it will make me more money for less hassle than Android. I don't expect Apple to pull the rug out for under me in most cases, because I don't expect to compete with them directly. If I'm selling a mobile app which acts as a book store, I would be dumb. Why? Well, the most prominent is that you're directly competing with Apple's own application released from Day One of it's book format device. Unless you're a large company with bargaining power (e.g. Netflix, Amazon), it will not go well... Similarly with all the drama about the Twitter API. Twitter is not a platform. 99% of the complainers, well they're making Twitter clients. That's it. They are taking twitter's data and displaying it slightly differently(?[1]). They aren't creating anything new, or particularly original, sorry. Once a couple good clients came out, the game was over, and Twitter purchased one as the canonical version. In this case, you're in early or you don't go in. [1] Most of them, tellingly, I have a hard time seeing the difference between.