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> Twitter doesn't give a fuck about developers now that they have sufficiently used them to build their platform and brand. I really hate that this is the stan

by jenius 12y ago

> Twitter doesn't give a fuck about developers now that they have sufficiently used them to build their platform and brand. I really hate that this is the standard model for building startups these days. Make a free service, grow your userbase using investment money and by encouraging developers to build on your platform, then once users and developers are dependent on the platform, start littering it with ads, selling users' data, and shutting down all your API and all the developers' work. We've seen this happen over and over. Will it ever stop? One thing is for sure, developers will wizen up to this if it continues and stop building on top of platforms, which just sucks for everyone.

wbillingsley 12y ago
Something that perhaps ought to happen is that in the UK, Australia, etc public broadcasters (those funded by the public) such as the BBC and ABC should be required to stop integrating Twitter into their programs. For example, Q&A (on ABC1) uses Twitter as its primary channel for real-time audience engagement -- announced every week by the host and shown on-screen multiple times in each program. It's fairly clear this isn't benign as the producers at the ABC might think, but means that public money is being used to give an advantage to one commercial social networking company over any other.
Moru 12y ago
There is fresh meat out of school every day and they are replacing the old ones already and continuing the same way.
bambax 12y ago
I completely agree with you, but for the use of the word "dependent". What user is dependent on Twitter? Seriously? Can't one stop tweeting in an instant without any ill effect on her life? For developers it's a different story -- but they should know better.
- pchristensen 12y ago
  Aside from people with huge audiences and Twitter-related businesses, anything you choose to use and incorporate into your life is at least somewhat of a dependency, even in the presence of substitutes. For example, I love Chick-fil-A sandwiches. When I moved, the closest Chick-fil-A is now far away. I was dependent on Chick-fil-A, and I'm less happy without it, even though I have missed no meals and probably eaten healthier in its absence. All kinds of things are like this - if emacs went away, I could learn vim. If my apartment building went condo, I could find another place to live. If my favorite TV show got cancelled, I would find something else to watch, read a book, etc. But those are all things I chose to use, and taking any of them away would reduce my welfare by definition, even if only a little bit.
  - bambax 12y ago
    If words have meaning and if we try to stay away from hyperbole, you are not dependent on Chick-fil-A, never have been, never will be.
    - pchristensen 12y ago
      What would you suggest (more for e.g. Twitter users than my example)? Reliant? Used to? The whole concept of dependence is that substitutes aren't perfect. Windows/Mac, Android/iOS, emacs/vim - no one is dependent on those, but a lot of people would be pissed if any one of them went away.
      - Double_Cast 12y ago
        I would say that users have a vested interest Twitter's continued service. Also, I don't think substitution has anything to do with dependence. If "dependence" signified inferior substitutes, I'd expect "independence" to signify fungibility rather than autonomy.
      - avalaunch 12y ago
        The issue is obviously one of semantics but your concept of dependence is not the widely accepted concept. Dependence means completely reliant on - no substitutions would do. The thing you're dependent on is a requirement, not a preference. For example, you are dependent on food. Remove food from the equation and you will perish. You are not dependent on Chick-fil-A. Twitpic is dependent on twitter. There are no substitutions that they can make and still survive. They can't port to a service comparable to twitter as there are none. EDIT: Whether or not users are dependent on twitter is up for date. I imagine it depends on their use case.
- frogpelt 12y ago
  You could find out how many people were dependent by taking it away. What would happen if tomorrow Twitter was completely gone? I guess society would move on. But probably one way they/we would move on is by building another Twitter.
- rhizome 12y ago
  I would split a hair here: It's not the users as people who are dependent, necessarily, it's the content they've spent time contributing that is dependent on the existence of the 3rd party service and on Twitter itself.
- count 12y ago
  I have many, many twitter acquaintances I have literally no other way to contact (many I don't even know their actual names). So yes, dependent in that it's an independent, non-duplicated social graph, completely disjoint from other social graphs. Leaving it would, in fact, cause an ill effect in my life (multiple ill effects, actually), just as withdrawing from any social group.
benstein 12y ago
True in this case, but I don't see this being a trend and definitely not the "standard model for building startups". What are some other examples of companies that have done this?
DodgyEggplant 12y ago
Legally speaking, most terms of service include a term which allows the provider to change everything in the future, without any limitation. Maybe developers are advised to develop for a platform only if the terms of service include some commitments which will be kept and not changed.
jmspring 12y ago
Over the years I have talked to a few companies (large and small) that wanted to move forward on a platform yet maintain some legacy cruft...aka sustaining engineering. I partially declined these companies at the risk of them hiring new and then the stuff you work on you maintain for it's lifetime...but that's another story. That said, I am curious if there is a business model being missed here. Essentially for twit pic and similar, buying up/sustaining the content and trying to figure out how to get some value out of it. Another option would be for companies like twitter to offer a mechanism where twit pic/etc content could be snarfed up by the internet archive and when a company goes away, somehow the links to content get redirected.
boomzilla 12y ago
I'd say it's more the shortsightedness of the developers who build on others' platform. It's OK to tag on but you've got to make sure that your core value prop is not a value added feature to that platform. Twitpic could have branched to something else 2-3 years ago, but they did not, and as a result, is eliminated from the game.
- imaginator 12y ago
  Agree that it's shortsightedness. But I think the problem goes much deeper: We keep building one-offs. Twitter - a one-off messaging service. Instagram - a one-off photo sharing app. This is one of the reasons I started Buddycloud. We'd already built a nice location and social app but eschewed the VC cash to, dare I use the word, pivot, and build a different way of building apps. Instead of building another one-off social-location-system like Foursquare, we decided it better to build a federated platform that others can then start building on. The federation and run-it-yourself mentality means that our users don't end up in the Twitpic scenario and that there are always other suppliers that will host your pictures in a compatible way. In a way that fosters competition between providers without needing to resort to switching friction cost to keep users. In the Twitpic case, the buddycloud media server is designed to be a plug-in federated media hosting provider for each domain. Don't like how one provider is dealing with you data? Just switch. It's not been easy to get this far, but we're starting to see traction from ex-app.net devs who are looking for something a bit more open that they can also run themselves (as a Docker container). And I still believe that the real solutions will be based on federated open systems that form a foundation so that developers can innovate further up the stack.
EGreg 12y ago
Yes, it will stop when platforms are distributed and cannot be shut down so easily. Where APIs are replaced with protocols, built on top of the open web.
blazespin 12y ago
This will never stop because it's profitable for SOHOs to build on the developer APIs. I remember the days of making 5K a day on Facebook API before they shut it all down. Your best bet when you do implement to a dev API is to assume this is exactly what will happen and plan to pivot once you've established some mindshare.

by jenius 12y ago

wbillingsley 12y ago

Something that perhaps ought to happen is that in the UK, Australia, etc public broadcasters (those funded by the public) such as the BBC and ABC should be required to stop integrating Twitter into their programs. For example, Q&A (on ABC1) uses Twitter as its primary channel for real-time audience engagement -- announced every week by the host and shown on-screen multiple times in each program. It's fairly clear this isn't benign as the producers at the ABC might think, but means that public money is being used to give an advantage to one commercial social networking company over any other.

Moru 12y ago

There is fresh meat out of school every day and they are replacing the old ones already and continuing the same way.

bambax 12y ago

I completely agree with you, but for the use of the word "dependent". What user is dependent on Twitter? Seriously? Can't one stop tweeting in an instant without any ill effect on her life? For developers it's a different story -- but they should know better.

pchristensen 12y ago
Aside from people with huge audiences and Twitter-related businesses, anything you choose to use and incorporate into your life is at least somewhat of a dependency, even in the presence of substitutes. For example, I love Chick-fil-A sandwiches. When I moved, the closest Chick-fil-A is now far away. I was dependent on Chick-fil-A, and I'm less happy without it, even though I have missed no meals and probably eaten healthier in its absence. All kinds of things are like this - if emacs went away, I could learn vim. If my apartment building went condo, I could find another place to live. If my favorite TV show got cancelled, I would find something else to watch, read a book, etc. But those are all things I chose to use, and taking any of them away would reduce my welfare by definition, even if only a little bit.
- bambax 12y ago
  If words have meaning and if we try to stay away from hyperbole, you are not dependent on Chick-fil-A, never have been, never will be.
  - pchristensen 12y ago
    What would you suggest (more for e.g. Twitter users than my example)? Reliant? Used to? The whole concept of dependence is that substitutes aren't perfect. Windows/Mac, Android/iOS, emacs/vim - no one is dependent on those, but a lot of people would be pissed if any one of them went away.
    - Double_Cast 12y ago
      I would say that users have a vested interest Twitter's continued service. Also, I don't think substitution has anything to do with dependence. If "dependence" signified inferior substitutes, I'd expect "independence" to signify fungibility rather than autonomy.
    - avalaunch 12y ago
      The issue is obviously one of semantics but your concept of dependence is not the widely accepted concept. Dependence means completely reliant on - no substitutions would do. The thing you're dependent on is a requirement, not a preference. For example, you are dependent on food. Remove food from the equation and you will perish. You are not dependent on Chick-fil-A. Twitpic is dependent on twitter. There are no substitutions that they can make and still survive. They can't port to a service comparable to twitter as there are none. EDIT: Whether or not users are dependent on twitter is up for date. I imagine it depends on their use case.
frogpelt 12y ago
You could find out how many people were dependent by taking it away. What would happen if tomorrow Twitter was completely gone? I guess society would move on. But probably one way they/we would move on is by building another Twitter.
rhizome 12y ago
I would split a hair here: It's not the users as people who are dependent, necessarily, it's the content they've spent time contributing that is dependent on the existence of the 3rd party service and on Twitter itself.
count 12y ago
I have many, many twitter acquaintances I have literally no other way to contact (many I don't even know their actual names). So yes, dependent in that it's an independent, non-duplicated social graph, completely disjoint from other social graphs. Leaving it would, in fact, cause an ill effect in my life (multiple ill effects, actually), just as withdrawing from any social group.

benstein 12y ago

True in this case, but I don't see this being a trend and definitely not the "standard model for building startups". What are some other examples of companies that have done this?

DodgyEggplant 12y ago

Legally speaking, most terms of service include a term which allows the provider to change everything in the future, without any limitation. Maybe developers are advised to develop for a platform only if the terms of service include some commitments which will be kept and not changed.

jmspring 12y ago

Over the years I have talked to a few companies (large and small) that wanted to move forward on a platform yet maintain some legacy cruft...aka sustaining engineering. I partially declined these companies at the risk of them hiring new and then the stuff you work on you maintain for it's lifetime...but that's another story. That said, I am curious if there is a business model being missed here. Essentially for twit pic and similar, buying up/sustaining the content and trying to figure out how to get some value out of it. Another option would be for companies like twitter to offer a mechanism where twit pic/etc content could be snarfed up by the internet archive and when a company goes away, somehow the links to content get redirected.

boomzilla 12y ago

I'd say it's more the shortsightedness of the developers who build on others' platform. It's OK to tag on but you've got to make sure that your core value prop is not a value added feature to that platform. Twitpic could have branched to something else 2-3 years ago, but they did not, and as a result, is eliminated from the game.

imaginator 12y ago
Agree that it's shortsightedness. But I think the problem goes much deeper: We keep building one-offs. Twitter - a one-off messaging service. Instagram - a one-off photo sharing app. This is one of the reasons I started Buddycloud. We'd already built a nice location and social app but eschewed the VC cash to, dare I use the word, pivot, and build a different way of building apps. Instead of building another one-off social-location-system like Foursquare, we decided it better to build a federated platform that others can then start building on. The federation and run-it-yourself mentality means that our users don't end up in the Twitpic scenario and that there are always other suppliers that will host your pictures in a compatible way. In a way that fosters competition between providers without needing to resort to switching friction cost to keep users. In the Twitpic case, the buddycloud media server is designed to be a plug-in federated media hosting provider for each domain. Don't like how one provider is dealing with you data? Just switch. It's not been easy to get this far, but we're starting to see traction from ex-app.net devs who are looking for something a bit more open that they can also run themselves (as a Docker container). And I still believe that the real solutions will be based on federated open systems that form a foundation so that developers can innovate further up the stack.

EGreg 12y ago

Yes, it will stop when platforms are distributed and cannot be shut down so easily. Where APIs are replaced with protocols, built on top of the open web.

blazespin 12y ago

This will never stop because it's profitable for SOHOs to build on the developer APIs. I remember the days of making 5K a day on Facebook API before they shut it all down. Your best bet when you do implement to a dev API is to assume this is exactly what will happen and plan to pivot once you've established some mindshare.