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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?

#61

Post by esrauch »

kelnos wrote: post #50
rcfox wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's silly. They wouldn't develop something with the plan of cancelling it.

Why not? Roll something out, and say you'll commit to providing it for a certain amount of time. If, after that time, it doesn't seem worth it to keep it going (by any metric you decide), pull it. You've given fair warning. Of course, I imagine that sort of thing would hurt adoption quite a bit.

Most of the APIs are going to be up for 3 more years, the only one you can possibly complain about is the Translate API.

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

#62

Post by cookiecaper »

chc wrote: post #56
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?

You mean like .NET? Or Cocoa Touch? Or DOM? Or Node? Or POSIX? At some point, we're all relying on APIs provided by somebody else. I think that's why it's so easy for people to ignore the pitfalls of just a little bit more.

The difference is that those APIs are "non-cloud". The code necessary to run those APIs is spread far and wide and no one can just centrally "turn off" .NET or POSIX. Perhaps over time the programs written for unmaintained APIs will fail on newer platforms, but you will always have the means to go back to the old system and run your dependent programs there. In Google's web-based system, Google is the only one with the keys necessary to keep that engine running, and if they take their ball and go home, all of that API's users are screwed.

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

#63

Post by bane »

thetrumanshow wrote: post #4

Google has made some unpopular developer-facing moves lately (App Engine pricing changes come to mind), and it seems entirely out-of-character. From now on, any API announcement from Google should be accompanied with a GIANT expiration date stamped all over it by default. Then, if it keeps going... happy surprise!

I agree, something strange is definitely going on internally at Google.

I actually attribute it to starting with the shutdown of Wave and the floundering about with Buzz and other products since then.

One thing that Google has been excellent at doing is building up the perception that they have near limitless computing power at their disposal. These kinds of shutdowns, and the reasons given, are doing immense harm to that cultivated image.

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

#64

Post by Klonoar »

Gunther wrote: post #6

I would be very interested in seeing how many developers would pay for the Translate API if Google had decided to monetize it instead of deprecating it then shutting it down as some of the commentors on the blog had suggested. At the same time if the Google Translate API is such a popular service then maybe there is enough demand to support a startup providing a Translate API ;)

A startup that provides a Translate API... hmmm..

http://mygengo.com/services/api/

Works, no? It's human-based translation, though; a tad bit slower, but generally higher quality overall. ;)

Full Disclosure: I currently work with this company.

People should also definitely (at least) be aware of the Microsoft Translate APIs.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff512423.aspx

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

#65

Post by bane »

frisco wrote: post #10
Gunther wrote: post #6

I would be very interested in seeing how many developers would pay for the Translate API if Google had decided to monetize it instead of deprecating it then shutting it down as some of the commentors on the blog had suggested. At the same time if the Google Translate API is such a popular service then maybe there is enough demand to support a startup providing a Translate API ;)

Starting a startup to replace Google Translate wouldn't be a simple proposition. Google's translation algorithms are considered best-of-breed and involve highly sophisticated statistical machine learning trained over a significant portion of their web crawl corpus data. Their staff scientists and engineers working on Translate are some of the best in the field, and the complexity here should not be underestimated. Th…

I wonder how much work it would be for Google to build a "Translation appliance" people could buy? I'd wager they'd do $100million in government sales alone the first year.

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

#66

Post by magicalist »

I keep hearing about hypothetical for-profit products and people's weekend hobby projects being affected by this change, but does anyone have any example of an actual business that will be affected by this change?

Note that most of these APIs have 3 year deprecation policies and so will continue to be around; only the translate api is going away (and that's in December).

I have serious doubts that almost anyone would actually pay per translate (and if you would, it's likely you could work out a license deal independent of a public API anyway). It seems like the reaction to this has more to do with annoyance that another cool free service is going away and remaining anger over app engine pricing changes.

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

#67

Post by code_duck »

kenjackson wrote: post #43
code_duck wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure that's not what TweetDeck is thinking this week.

But it's probably what all the other Twitter clients are thinking. :-)

Doubtlessly. I hate being in the thrall of a company in such a way too. It's dangerous to be dependent upon someone else's their API. But is the chance of great success lower than for with other businesses? Probably better to start a Twitter client than a to-do list site or something.

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

#68

Post by eli »

chc wrote: post #56
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?

You mean like .NET? Or Cocoa Touch? Or DOM? Or Node? Or POSIX? At some point, we're all relying on APIs provided by somebody else. I think that's why it's so easy for people to ignore the pitfalls of just a little bit more.

If Microsoft stopped all .NET support today, my .NET apps will still keep running. Big difference.

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

#69

Post by mcdaid »

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…

See

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-appengine/ob-...

Clarifies that you will be paying per instance hour, instead of cpu.

Nothing is in concrete yet, if there is enough outrage amongst users maybe they will change their tune.

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

#70

Post by daniel_reetz »

nasmorn wrote: post #44
ChuckMcM wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you pay for an API, and it doesn't work, you can show economic harm and that gives you a basis to sue. I know from experience that a number of Google's APIs are just some engineer's idea of how to hook into the data stored in the back end which Google puts out there for some easy (and free) goodwill but without any commitment ever to actually do the necessary foundational work to support it as a product (which the…

Never explain with stupidity what can be explained with economic self interest.

"Never explain with stupidity what can be explained with economic self interest."

Nasmorn's Law

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