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Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

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Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#161

Post by lurker19 »

qq66 wrote: post #13
jmathai wrote: post #2

I can't state this enough. Building your company which heavily relies on an API provided by someone else is risky business. Why are we still in this infatuation stage of ignoring the pitfalls of this?

I think relying on a free API is the problem, not any API. When you pay per request for access to an API, at a level that can make the provider as well as you profitable, you can have some comfort in the fact that if your provider goes down there will likely be a competitor to spring up in its place.

As long as you are willing to wait 5 or 10 years for someone to replicate Google's R&D.

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#162

Post by mromaine »

Klonoar wrote: post #47
michaelpinto wrote: post #25

Question: Can anyone recommend another Translation API? The problem is that the translation work that Google does is the best out there that I've seen, and I'm not even sure if there's a decent alternative to be found.

Full disclosure: I currently work with the company detailed below (myGengo). Depending on your needs, you could consider human based translation, which is generally more accurate than machine-based translation. Over at myGengo ( http://mygengo.com/ ) we offer an API to help people get translations done by an actual translator, as opposed to a machine (think Mechanical Turk, but focused on translation). Feel free to c…

Full disclosure: I'm the CTO of myGengo

I would also add that because translation is core to our business, we would never deprecate the translation API :)

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#163

Post by dmoney »

cookiecaper wrote: post #76
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost in goodwill (and perhaps even real money) of using translate to fill hundreds/thousands of google ad-filled spam sites in hundreds of different languages may be much higher than they could ever conceivably recoup in charging for the API. Once you charge more than any legitimate user would be willing to pay for the API, you are effectively shutting down the API anyway.

Are spammers going to be willing to pay x cents/call just to fill spam pages with translations? We must make x high enough that spammers will not make enough profit to justify the expense but legitimate businesses that depend on the API will still be able to pay for it. Spam is all about maximum distribution and massiveness, so I don't think the pricing would have to be very high to take the profitability out of the…

The spammers would only have to translate each page once. Further, they could translate only the pages that users request in language X as needed and cache the results.

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#164

Post by mmccomb »

Pruning old APIs wouldn't put me off. What puts me off is the inter-dependencies between APIs. Want to use Google Prediction API? Well you'll need a Google Storage API account for that. Oh and, you can only have one of those for free. And just in case, they'll take your billing info.

I was psyched to start playing around with the prediction API but just got totally put off by the new API pricing/management. I'd argue that the restrictions are now so tight and cumbersome that there's no real sandbox environment to encourage devs to try out the services. I'm a touch disappointed.

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#166

Post by dhimes »

wolfhumble wrote: post #155
tomkarlo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand being unhappy because they've decided to deprecate a free API. I disagree with the rage of the OP. This was a free service and they're no longer going to offer it, and they're shutting it down in an orderly manner. That's not selfish. This is more like someone giving you a birthday present every year, and then when they fail to send you one, you write a nasty post about how greedy and selfish they ar…

Yes I agree, one should always be grateful! I think it is difficult to compare this to a birthday present you did not receive, though. It is more like they want you to throw away the birthday present you got last year; a present you were grateful for and that now plays an important part in your daily routine.

Exactly. Would you accept the next gift? Especially when giving the gift isn't a selfless act-- it's only given if it benefits the giver.

I don't use their APIs, and am not building a business on anybody else's platform, so it doesn't affect me personally. But if I were doing that, this would make me change my mind.

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#167

Post by pasbesoin »

wccrawford wrote: post #7

You mean, why should you build a for-profit product while relying on someone else's not-for-profit API? I'm guessing you shouldn't! I've seen a lot of neat projects come from Google APIs, but that's as far as I'd taking it. Relying on someone else's good will for the lifeblood of your company is insane. 1 exception, though: Getting started. I could see using Google to get off the ground and then switching to a more r…

One needs to keep in mind that a significant portion of Google's public facing deployment consists of "throwing stuff against the wall, and seeing what sticks".

Remember the now legendary "beta" moniker. It applies, even where it's not explicitly designated.

I'm not defending Google. Just saying.

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#168

Post by pnathan »

rbonvall wrote: post #137
saurik wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upgrading to Python 3 is simply not an option for me at this time as I am depending on libraries that still require me to be using Python 2: Python 2->3 is an "all or nothing" endeavor due to the horrendously incompatible way they have handled this transition. I mean: the fact that five years /have/ passed and Python 3 is still a silly pipe dream for almost all users of Python should tell you something about how poor…

> the fact that five years /have/ passed and Python 3 is still a silly pipe dream for almost all users of Python should tell you something about how poorly this was done. So far, it has been just how it was meant to be. It was never the goal for Python 3 to be the default Python version by year 2011.

I work with Python 2.x on a regular basis. I have no cause to recommend Python 3.x at this point in the game. Depending on Ubuntu 12/13's choices , I may push my team towards moving away from Python altogether.

I don't see that the Python team really made the right choice here. I have no good transition path from 2 to 3 besides an intensive rewrite.

Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?

#170

Post by mike_esspe »

bad_user wrote: post #46
wccrawford wrote: post #7

You mean, why should you build a for-profit product while relying on someone else's not-for-profit API? I'm guessing you shouldn't! I've seen a lot of neat projects come from Google APIs, but that's as far as I'd taking it. Relying on someone else's good will for the lifeblood of your company is insane. 1 exception, though: Getting started. I could see using Google to get off the ground and then switching to a more r…

Google's App Engine is pretty much a for-profit API. And now they've announced a change in their pricing scheme, which if true, would change App Engine from pay-what-you-use to same-as-amazon-aws-but-pricier scheme, which makes it hugely expensive for a large portion of devs that have built on top of App Engine. And migrating away from App Engine is a total pain in the ass. I truly hope that the blog-post missed impo…

I somehow missed the new pricing model. It looks like my bill will skyrocket 2-3 times to over $2000/month. They explicitly tell, that old customers will be forced to move to a new pricing scheme. I wonder why there weren't a rage on HN front page about that?

I regret, that didn't choose AWS EC2 in the beginning.

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