From Apple to Facebook to Twitter, are we learning that APIs and App Stores are simply traps wherein complements are commoditized so as to drive adoption and to explore (or ripoff) enhancements?
These things seem to be win/win/win for the providers and angst/angst/angst for wannabe collaborators.
While I hate to blindly agree and lump all these successful companies into API traps, you are pretty much right. From a business standpoint, if Facebook (or any other API company) sees massive growth/activity in an application on its platform, you better believe they are going to take notice and have some course of action.
The main aggravation/issue stems from developers wanting to use these APIs to gain access to users without fully qualifying the risks. I could easily be building a fantasy sports app on Facebook thinking, "they won't EVER get into this market. They have much bigger problems to solve." 2 years later, they get into the space and shut me down because I am a competitor.
These "wannabe collaborators" are not trying to improve the experience on said platform. They are trying to gain access to a vast database of users with low barriers of entry and an easy to use(/abuse) marketing channels. It's unfortunate that no one has the foresight into understanding where a company as large as Facebook/LinkedIn/etc may pivot into, but only insiders really have first hand knowledge of this sort of thing.
Exactly, developers seem to flock to platforms like Apple, Facebook and Twitter based on the fact that they have a large and growing user base without giving thought to this issue of commoditization of complements and how it ultimately destroy the business or livelihood of these developers.
Most people building products or sharecropping on other people's platform never make meaningful income and yet those platform prefer to announce large sums paid out to developers to encourage you to keep building complements. Apple will claim they paid out $5 billion but when spread out or divided among the numerous app developers it becomes peanut and not enough to pay their bills. You won't hear Apple give you the breakdown as that will expose them and destroy the wrong picture they want to paint to developers. Neither will they tell you that to pay out $5bn they made atleast $2billion based on their 30% cut, off your work and yet countless app developers are not making enough to live on.
They don't tell you that iOS app success is a "lottery": 60% (or more) of developers don't break even
I really hope people will think hard before building their business on the back of Apple, Facebook, Twitter or any such platform. You can use them as as distribution without making your business model entirely dependent on them and that is the way to go.
Be your own bitch and not a Twitter, Apple or Facebook bitch:
Of course that's they way the platform pushers market it, and you're right to be skeptical. But I wouldn't call it a lottery just because very few people win.
It's a marketplace; why would anyone expect the profits to be shared among the vendors? Saying there is a lot of money changing hands is not dishonest.
There's a huge difference between founding a company on a vision of being a utility for developers and attempting to fulfill all the promise that Twitter had in the early days, versus the actual Twitter where they never really figured out what they were doing and scaled out to require such levels of investment that the grown ups inevitably moved in and started cannibalizing it for cash.
Yes, let's. Because by giving him money on the basis of a promise, he risks losing money (in the form of future subscriptions) by breaking them. On the other hand, to Twitter your value to them is measured in change per year. I'm willing to bet Twitter doesn't break a lot of promises it makes to its true customers, advertisers.
I see app.net as a project/product by someone spurned by closed systems hoping to build a more open and egalitarian system, but it still is centralized. There is a leap of faith to believe that this goodwill will not alter over time (as business needs change, etc.).
Ideally, I'd love to see something more in line w/ what Dave Winer has proposed -- decentralized services not controlled by a single entity and the like. However, Diaspora was one such attempt in that arena and did not do well.
These things seem to be win/win/win for the providers and angst/angst/angst for wannabe collaborators.