Glad I stuck to scraping Google Translate, and not using the API. Cheaper and a better long-term solution.
What did you use instead?
Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?
71–80 of 185 posts
Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?
#72Google cites abuse as the reason for shutting down the translate API. I find it ironic that they have engineers smart enough to write software that can translate human language between hundreds of language pairs, but can't write software to stop abuse. I'll let Google in on a little secret: If you charge more for a service than it costs you to provide, then there is no such thing as abuse.
Well, maybe not just that type of abuse, overusage without benefit to Google. Of course there could still be abuse of some sort, like somehow using a service to spread spam or malware.
Somehow I doubt that's the abuse they are concerned about.
Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?
#73Google cites abuse as the reason for shutting down the translate API. I find it ironic that they have engineers smart enough to write software that can translate human language between hundreds of language pairs, but can't write software to stop abuse. I'll let Google in on a little secret: If you charge more for a service than it costs you to provide, then there is no such thing as abuse.
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.
Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?
#74Google 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!
Google seems to be really good at starting projects and really bad at stopping them.
Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?
#75You 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…
Right. And this same argument means you should not rely on, for example, gmail, for your email. This is good advice for people in general, although perhaps not something google wants to hear, as they generally market themselves as someone you can trust. Obviously, google will let you down in exactly the same way that, say, apple or microsoft or facebook will. The pain for some people might be greater in this case, simply because the expectations were higher. I often wonder if they regret adopting that "don't be evil" motto.
Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?
#76Google cites abuse as the reason for shutting down the translate API. I find it ironic that they have engineers smart enough to write software that can translate human language between hundreds of language pairs, but can't write software to stop abuse. I'll let Google in on a little secret: If you charge more for a service than it costs you to provide, then there is no such thing as abuse.
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 spam operations.
Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?
#77You 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…
As a counterpoint, many companies are built off of APIs that are out there. That's the nature of business and that's actually great for the API authors out there. But if developers knew that APIs could easily go away, then people wouldn't build businesses on top of those APIs. The risk would be too high. I don't know the history but it seems that Google could've implemented some simple solutions to prevent abuse of t…
That's not really a counterpoint, is it? The comment you're replying to advised people not to build for-profit enterprises off Google's free APIs. It didn't weasel an excuse for maybe just using the APIs anyways because it probably would work out in the long run; it said, rightly, "don't".
Guessing Google has bigger fish to fry than making the world nicer for people who want to build apps on translation APIs.
Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?
#78I 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…
Yes. I hire many translators. We use google translate, and license professional dictionaries to speedup the process. I estimate that Google translate saves us $20k/year. I personally would be willing to pay a lot for continued access to the translate API. (I'll probably just end up using some sort of iframe hackery when the translate API goes away)
The actual business is http://www.yabla.com/
Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?
#79It's really too bad. The Translate API was super, super fun to play with. I made myself a cute little interface to translate JavaScript or CSV arrays into multiple languages simultaneously. I envisioned being able to build fully self-translating web applications. And there's no other company providing this type of technology in this fashion. If there's any startup working in this area, here's your chance.
Agreed. This is a great opportunity for a startup to swoop in, clone the Google API so the only change necessary is authentication tokens and URI, and get everyone to switch to their (paid) platform.
Re: Why should anyone ever use a Google API again?
#80Never rely on anyones API, building something with API is mashup/side-project not a startup/company.
Also, you shouldn't ever write a program with dependencies. :P