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This is the libertarian fantasy: just build the entire platform yourself and you don’t have to deal with the pesky decisions of other companies. Yes, you have

This is the libertarian fantasy: just build the entire platform yourself and you don’t have to deal with the pesky decisions of other companies. Yes, you have to choose your dependencies carefully, but where does it end? Steam could go away tomorrow. The game engine you license could go out of business. Your hosting provider, your DNS provider could kick you off. If you don’t entertain new platforms, you are leaving money on the table. I’d wager that Japanese game manufacturers missed hundreds of millions of dollars by being late to embrace Steam.

josephcsible 5y ago
> Steam could go away tomorrow. Sell your game on your own website too. > The game engine you license could go out of business. Use a FOSS engine, so even if the original maintainers totally abandon it, someone else can fork it. > Your hosting provider, your DNS provider could kick you off. You can switch to a new hosting/DNS provider transparently to your customers.
eldavido 5y ago
Nailed it. This article is a textbook example of why STEM people shouldn't be so quick to dismiss things like political science. What we're talking about here is governance -- laws, norms, and fairness. Nobody lives on an island. Even on land that's "yours", you're still reliant on things like roads, water pipes, and other shared public infrastructure. You don't like how someone's running things, vote them out or leave, but don't pretend you're better off doing everything yourself. "Self-sufficiency is the road to poverty" as a famous economist said. Incidentally I've been watching the walking dead again (season 8) and a lot of this stuff is the subject of the show. It's definitely had some rough patches but at its core, it's a show about how to build communities and large-scale civilizations, and what effects various leadership styles have on each society's long-term prospects. Very relevant.
- allemagne 5y ago
  The political angle here is totally disconnected with what the analogy is trying to get at. We can safely assume the author is not trying to advocate complete and total self-sufficiency in every context all the time.
allemagne 5y ago
Calling this article a "libertarian fantasy" seems unfair. The author does explicitly recommend entertaining new platforms, but being prepared with a backup plan for when these platforms are no longer viable for whatever reason. Where does it end? They call out these options as presumably being "safe enough": - A website on a domain you own - A mailing list - Own and license your Intellectual Property - Sell your merch on your site - Your own reputation We can extend this logic to an unrealistic degree and do nothing but make your game/app/service completely agnostic to any platform in every way, but we can acknowledge that such perfection is unattainable without throwing out the value of being platform-agnostic in realistic ways.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  > Where does it end? They call out these options as presumably being "safe enough": Is there any data around why these are safer than the alternatives? Because the article is just a classic case of nerd philosophy; there's _no_ justification of the actual risks involves in these platforms aside from vague anecdotes and analogies, then using these vague anecdotes to drive recommendations.
  - allemagne 5y ago
    I don't know, I think you can go ahead and use your best judgment on whether it's riskier for an indie game studio to go all-in on marketing through a social media juggernaut or trying to steer people to channels like a mailing list that they control. This is not a research paper. I'm sure there's lots to criticize in "nerd philosophy" but an article that boils down to "avoid vendor lock-in" with a cute analogy is just a weird target to choose. If you can't help but read a certain ideological slant onto it and can't possibly understand it separate from that reading, I think that says more about you.
  - marc_io 5y ago
    I've seen many examples here in HN about people who have lost access to one of these kingdoms for no good reason or as a result of some weird algorithmic decision.

josephcsible 5y ago

> Steam could go away tomorrow. Sell your game on your own website too. > The game engine you license could go out of business. Use a FOSS engine, so even if the original maintainers totally abandon it, someone else can fork it. > Your hosting provider, your DNS provider could kick you off. You can switch to a new hosting/DNS provider transparently to your customers.

eldavido 5y ago

Nailed it. This article is a textbook example of why STEM people shouldn't be so quick to dismiss things like political science. What we're talking about here is governance -- laws, norms, and fairness. Nobody lives on an island. Even on land that's "yours", you're still reliant on things like roads, water pipes, and other shared public infrastructure. You don't like how someone's running things, vote them out or leave, but don't pretend you're better off doing everything yourself. "Self-sufficiency is the road to poverty" as a famous economist said. Incidentally I've been watching the walking dead again (season 8) and a lot of this stuff is the subject of the show. It's definitely had some rough patches but at its core, it's a show about how to build communities and large-scale civilizations, and what effects various leadership styles have on each society's long-term prospects. Very relevant.

allemagne 5y ago
The political angle here is totally disconnected with what the analogy is trying to get at. We can safely assume the author is not trying to advocate complete and total self-sufficiency in every context all the time.

allemagne 5y ago

Calling this article a "libertarian fantasy" seems unfair. The author does explicitly recommend entertaining new platforms, but being prepared with a backup plan for when these platforms are no longer viable for whatever reason. Where does it end? They call out these options as presumably being "safe enough": - A website on a domain you own - A mailing list - Own and license your Intellectual Property - Sell your merch on your site - Your own reputation We can extend this logic to an unrealistic degree and do nothing but make your game/app/service completely agnostic to any platform in every way, but we can acknowledge that such perfection is unattainable without throwing out the value of being platform-agnostic in realistic ways.

Karrot_Kream 5y ago
> Where does it end? They call out these options as presumably being "safe enough": Is there any data around why these are safer than the alternatives? Because the article is just a classic case of nerd philosophy; there's _no_ justification of the actual risks involves in these platforms aside from vague anecdotes and analogies, then using these vague anecdotes to drive recommendations.
- allemagne 5y ago
  I don't know, I think you can go ahead and use your best judgment on whether it's riskier for an indie game studio to go all-in on marketing through a social media juggernaut or trying to steer people to channels like a mailing list that they control. This is not a research paper. I'm sure there's lots to criticize in "nerd philosophy" but an article that boils down to "avoid vendor lock-in" with a cute analogy is just a weird target to choose. If you can't help but read a certain ideological slant onto it and can't possibly understand it separate from that reading, I think that says more about you.
- marc_io 5y ago
  I've seen many examples here in HN about people who have lost access to one of these kingdoms for no good reason or as a result of some weird algorithmic decision.