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He left out an important reason: That Facebook can and will ban apps at will, regardless of whether or not they have actually done anything wrong. IMO, that's

He left out an important reason: That Facebook can and will ban apps at will, regardless of whether or not they have actually done anything wrong. IMO, that's probably where the "uninvestable" comment mentioned in the article came from. If you have to wake up every morning wondering if your app that had X million users last night is still alive, that's a big problem. I know of apps that have been banned because malicious actors were using access tokens from those apps to do spammy things even though the app itself wasn't sending those requests. Facebook returns access tokens in the URL upon authorization, so the user is exposed to it and can use it for anything they want. Given nothing more than an app ID, any user can send spam posts and make it appear to have come from any app they choose. This includes Facebook-owned apps.

kevingadd 14y ago
Do you think the same reason applies for iOS apps, given that the same is true there? I suspect investors (and people running startups) are willing to tolerate a lot of risk if they feel the upside is big enough.
- downandout 14y ago
  Actually, Apple isn't nearly as troublesome as Facebook is when it comes to banning. They have a clearly defined re-submission policy, which Facebook does not. In many instances Facebook will ban both the app and the account behind it, and they don't have staff to respond to appeals in a timely manner.
  - lobotryas 14y ago
    You are correct, unfortunately there have been times when an app banned by Apple can't be resubmitted because removing the content Apple dislikes would destroy the functionality or purpose of that app. This is mot a dig at Apple - iOS is their garden and they may do as they wish - but a general reminder that risk assessment is necessary when you build your business on top of anybody else's stack (be it Twitter, FB, Apple, Google or Amazon).
freshfunk 14y ago
cough AppGratis cough

kevingadd 14y ago

Do you think the same reason applies for iOS apps, given that the same is true there? I suspect investors (and people running startups) are willing to tolerate a lot of risk if they feel the upside is big enough.

downandout 14y ago
Actually, Apple isn't nearly as troublesome as Facebook is when it comes to banning. They have a clearly defined re-submission policy, which Facebook does not. In many instances Facebook will ban both the app and the account behind it, and they don't have staff to respond to appeals in a timely manner.
- lobotryas 14y ago
  You are correct, unfortunately there have been times when an app banned by Apple can't be resubmitted because removing the content Apple dislikes would destroy the functionality or purpose of that app. This is mot a dig at Apple - iOS is their garden and they may do as they wish - but a general reminder that risk assessment is necessary when you build your business on top of anybody else's stack (be it Twitter, FB, Apple, Google or Amazon).

freshfunk 14y ago

cough AppGratis cough