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Exactly, Twitter went through the same process, locking down its API, introducing usage quotas and getting increasingly more hostile towards Twitter clients tha

by piva00 5y ago

Exactly, Twitter went through the same process, locking down its API, introducing usage quotas and getting increasingly more hostile towards Twitter clients that circumvented the ad-serving side of it. I remember it was a shitshow at the time, probably around 2012, I worked for a company that was leveraging Twitter's API for a product and we got quite nervous about the hostility.

skinnymuch 5y ago
Yeah. Facebook locking down their stuff earlier than that and then again when they had the perfect excuse because of HN and the media’s relentless attacking of FB for Cambridge Analytica, were both huge blows to any remaining optimism I had. The latter is even worse because Facebook limited their data and APIs which made the app worse...by doing exactly what people on HN and similar places perportedly wanted. There’s no winning. The Twitter fiasco was indeed a shit show. I remember being on HN once a week or so during that time but was on daily for a few weeks during that time. I believe the alternative Twitter app for $50/year came out around that time as well before failing.
- sangnoir 5y ago
  > Facebook locking down their stuff earlier than that and then again when they had the perfect excuse because of HN and the media’s relentless attacking of FB for Cambridge Analytica Facebook started locking their stuff way before Cambridge Analytica - I'd say by 5-8 years. Even then, Fb acted like an open platform for games and quizzes, but locked down its social-graph while siphoning Google's (via one-way Messenger-GTalk/XMPP interop). That marked a turning point for Google's attitude towards openness as well, since open vs. closed systems exhibit something similar to the paradox of tolerance: closed systems will take advantage of open systems and smother them out of existence.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    I did say FB was locking things down before. Things weren’t fully locked down for me personally until Cambridge Analytica. That’s when the graph became completely useless. At least it had a bit of utility before. For Google. That may have been a turning point. But Google’s actions by and large are their own. No one does their repeated bad behavior because of a few incidents with FB or other big players. Even more, I have no doubt Google would’ve ended up close enough to where they are now even without FBM’s interoperability shenanigans. On the other hand, FB had no reason to lock things down the way they did after Cambridge as it was already pretty much locked down. That was a perfect excuse to do something in their interest while garnering praise from everyone. It’s easy to blame FB for everything. They are the most blamed tech company for years now. Not as nice when society is complicit with one of their lockdown times though.
cloverich 5y ago
To extend, the company would not be sustainable without the ads, so not being hostile towards it could literally put them out of business. There's a balance but ultimately they eschew ads at the start to achieve more growth, knowing they can recoup their losses at a later date. It is a bait and switch in that sense, which is in turn a very legitimate thing to be pissed about. But any company hosting content for free can only sustain with ads or some kind of charging (users, businesses). We've seen experiments with more sustainable models (Mastadon? Another thatt charged users directly, forget the name already) but I don't think any winners have emerged yet. I'm optimistic there's a better future but I don't know what it looks like.
- Breza 5y ago
  > To extend, the company would not be sustainable without the ads This is accurate. And Twitter runs a lucrative data sharing business. In Q1 they made $137 million from data licensing. So there are two reasons they've locked down access.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by piva00 5y ago

skinnymuch 5y ago

Yeah. Facebook locking down their stuff earlier than that and then again when they had the perfect excuse because of HN and the media’s relentless attacking of FB for Cambridge Analytica, were both huge blows to any remaining optimism I had. The latter is even worse because Facebook limited their data and APIs which made the app worse...by doing exactly what people on HN and similar places perportedly wanted. There’s no winning. The Twitter fiasco was indeed a shit show. I remember being on HN once a week or so during that time but was on daily for a few weeks during that time. I believe the alternative Twitter app for $50/year came out around that time as well before failing.

sangnoir 5y ago
> Facebook locking down their stuff earlier than that and then again when they had the perfect excuse because of HN and the media’s relentless attacking of FB for Cambridge Analytica Facebook started locking their stuff way before Cambridge Analytica - I'd say by 5-8 years. Even then, Fb acted like an open platform for games and quizzes, but locked down its social-graph while siphoning Google's (via one-way Messenger-GTalk/XMPP interop). That marked a turning point for Google's attitude towards openness as well, since open vs. closed systems exhibit something similar to the paradox of tolerance: closed systems will take advantage of open systems and smother them out of existence.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  I did say FB was locking things down before. Things weren’t fully locked down for me personally until Cambridge Analytica. That’s when the graph became completely useless. At least it had a bit of utility before. For Google. That may have been a turning point. But Google’s actions by and large are their own. No one does their repeated bad behavior because of a few incidents with FB or other big players. Even more, I have no doubt Google would’ve ended up close enough to where they are now even without FBM’s interoperability shenanigans. On the other hand, FB had no reason to lock things down the way they did after Cambridge as it was already pretty much locked down. That was a perfect excuse to do something in their interest while garnering praise from everyone. It’s easy to blame FB for everything. They are the most blamed tech company for years now. Not as nice when society is complicit with one of their lockdown times though.

cloverich 5y ago

To extend, the company would not be sustainable without the ads, so not being hostile towards it could literally put them out of business. There's a balance but ultimately they eschew ads at the start to achieve more growth, knowing they can recoup their losses at a later date. It is a bait and switch in that sense, which is in turn a very legitimate thing to be pissed about. But any company hosting content for free can only sustain with ads or some kind of charging (users, businesses). We've seen experiments with more sustainable models (Mastadon? Another thatt charged users directly, forget the name already) but I don't think any winners have emerged yet. I'm optimistic there's a better future but I don't know what it looks like.

Breza 5y ago
> To extend, the company would not be sustainable without the ads This is accurate. And Twitter runs a lucrative data sharing business. In Q1 they made $137 million from data licensing. So there are two reasons they've locked down access.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]