Dear Mark Zuckerberg • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#241

Post by petegrif » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 6:49 AM UTC

jpdoctor wrote: post #219

csmeder wrote: post #190

A lot of people seem to be missing Dalton's point. Dalton isn't complaining Mark's behavior is bad (in the short term). He knows why Mark did what he did, it makes sense if you are thinking short term. It makes sense if you think Facebook is worth 110 Billion. This isn't a letter so much to convince Mark that he is heading down the wrong path. I think Dalton is convinced FB as an organization has made too many promis…

> So don't build your apps on it. The other reason: Putting a company with FB's reputation in your critical path is just asking for trouble.

Which is his point.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#242

Post by petegrif » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 6:49 AM UTC

lucisferre wrote: post #220

csmeder wrote: post #190

A lot of people seem to be missing Dalton's point. Dalton isn't complaining Mark's behavior is bad (in the short term). He knows why Mark did what he did, it makes sense if you are thinking short term. It makes sense if you think Facebook is worth 110 Billion. This isn't a letter so much to convince Mark that he is heading down the wrong path. I think Dalton is convinced FB as an organization has made too many promis…

This pretty much nails the sentiment I took from the story. He isn't so much complaining or railing against Facebook, but kicking himself for being, in hindsight, so naive. Not that anyone could blame him for it though. I mean, it certainly made perfect sense at the time, in fact for most of us, it still appears to make a lot of sense which is precisely why he is putting out these words of caution. The one line summa…

Well said.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#243

Post by petegrif » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 6:53 AM UTC

mattknox wrote: post #168

dalton wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I am unhappy that I wasted my time and energy building on a platform that encouraged me to do so, and within the matter of months changed their mind. This is the same thing that makes me unhappy with what Twitter is doing to their ecosystem: http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been 2) Once Mark Zuckerberg gave personal blessing, he shouldn't have changed his mind. I have an interesting email thread a…

How much elapsed time would make it OK? 6 months? a year? 10 years? Expecting a large company to know where it's going a year in advance and reveal it to outside devs seems unreasonable, even for pure platforms.

If you can't provide any stability and predictability for outside devs you shouldn't represent yourself as a platform. It's ridiculous to pretend othewise. A platform HAS TO BE STABLE. It HAS TO OFFER TRUST.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#244

Post by petegrif » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 6:59 AM UTC

Jare wrote: post #162

reinhardt wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting a company on top of FB's platform without the confidence that your API access is safe from FB's "strategic interests" is not business, it's russian roulette.

An awful lot of startups these days are created on top of an existing giant's rather volatile shoulders: Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, heck even Gree and Zynga. The APIs and platforms are a rat trap for developers, but the massive userbase is oh such tasty cheese. Most hope to be quick enough delivering value for a buyout to make more sense than a shutdown, but few can pull that off.

Absolutely right. The only difference between alleged platforms is how the platform owners treat their devs. All platform companies face the same issues of balancing developer trust and the ensuing added value and their own strategic imperatives but not all platform companies are alike. Companies can have very different cultures and very different attitudes to third parties with whom they have business relations. The fact that they CAN turn on their own on a whim doesn't mean that they have to or WILL. So stories about the documented behavior of any such companies are very valuable to devs.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#245

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 6:59 AM UTC

Jare wrote: post #162

reinhardt wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting a company on top of FB's platform without the confidence that your API access is safe from FB's "strategic interests" is not business, it's russian roulette.

An awful lot of startups these days are created on top of an existing giant's rather volatile shoulders: Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, heck even Gree and Zynga. The APIs and platforms are a rat trap for developers, but the massive userbase is oh such tasty cheese. Most hope to be quick enough delivering value for a buyout to make more sense than a shutdown, but few can pull that off.

[deleted]

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#246

Post by petegrif » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 7:01 AM UTC

joering2 wrote: post #214

dalton wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I am unhappy that I wasted my time and energy building on a platform that encouraged me to do so, and within the matter of months changed their mind. This is the same thing that makes me unhappy with what Twitter is doing to their ecosystem: http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been 2) Once Mark Zuckerberg gave personal blessing, he shouldn't have changed his mind. I have an interesting email thread a…

But Dalton was it really such a surprise for you? Was it a first time you heard or had a felling that someone is building something cool and dataset owner wants to shut them down? Seriously, I have at least 50 different cool ideas taping into both Twitter and Facebook streams, but will never lose a minute on any of those because I know that the stream can be turned off any minute. If you ever read techcrunch, mash, s…

I guess that judgement depends upon the degree to which you receive credible assurances that you feel you can rely on. You have been bitten by Don Dodge and are now twice shy. Doubtless DC will be doubly cautious in the future. I am sure he is trying to warn others to do likewise.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#247

Post by petegrif » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 7:04 AM UTC

azakai wrote: post #111

cube13 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's an awfully liberal use of "bad faith". There wasn't any "negotiation" yet at all, it's just a meeting. Meetings go off-agenda all the time. >Why should we care? I still don't see any ethics issues here at all. Hard negotiation isn't "bad faith". You're absolutely correct that hard negotiation tactics are not bad faith. However, like you point out, there wasn't supposed to be any negotiation about an offer in…

> There was no negotiation. In fact, one party(Dalton) did not come to negotiate. The other party clearly did. Is it that clear? We weren't there. Perhaps the Facebook executives listened to a presentation about his product for an hour, and realized during that time that the presented product was basically identical to their own intended product, so the last part of the meeting ended up revolving around "hey, looks w…

I don't think you have been reading the source material closely. It wasn't the case they suddenly realized. They knew about his product. They had encouraged him to build it.

Re: Dear Mark Zuckerberg

#248

Post by petegrif » Thu, Aug 02, 2012, 7:06 AM UTC

dalton wrote: post #84

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #76

Why wait 1.5 months to make an open letter after a "June 13th, 2012 at 4:30pm" meeting? Did you try communicating directly with Facebook for 45 days, then let it go? What makes now the best time to incite public wrath against Facebook (I'm assuming that was the intent in resolving never to write another line of code for a "rotten to the core" company) in an open letter that was anything but conciliatory? It sounds li…

I have been waiting because I have been afraid. I have been blogging extensively about platform-risk issues for the past month, but have never come out and said this part: http://daltoncaldwell.com/