Chad, That's what I meant by predatorial.
All the past rethoric around how appreciative Twitter was of the developer ecosystem, and how they valued the developer ecosystem, has taken on a brand-new tone and color today. On Apr 10, 1:02 pm, Chad Etzel <[email protected]> wrote: > On Apr 10, 2010, at 5:23, Dewald Pretorius <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Twitter has now displayed a distinctive predatorial stance towards the > > developer ecosystem. > > Whoa now. > > If by "predatorial" you mean "makes strategic acquisitions in line > with their business goals" then sure. See also: Google, Facebook, > Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, and countless others who are equally > "preditorial." Their ecosystems just happen to be broader at this point. > > Welcome to Capitalism and Corporate America. > > All that has happened is the bar for competition/innovation has been > significantly raised. Sure it will weed-out lesser developers, but it > will be a net positive for the end users (according to theory). > > -Chad > > > > > > > The ecosystem is encouraged to innovate, to expend time, effort, and > > money to come up with new ideas and build services. When that > > particular space proves to be successful and potentially rewarding, > > the predator pounces and screws everyone but the one picked as the > > winner. > > > In the long term, the acquisition of Tweetie was a penny-wise pound- > > foolish move, and here's why: > > > 1) From now on, everyone will know, or at least wonder, whether > > encouragement and support for the ecosystem is genuine, or simply a > > facade to cultivate the next space that Twitter can plunder. > > > 2) Innovation is stifled, because to many it now is not worth their > > effort, time, and money to develop services that stand a very good > > chance of receiving a similar kick in the teeth. > > > 3) In one single day, in one fell swoop, many developers have been > > turned away from Twitter. Few people have the level of imagination > > required to build new mouse traps, and fewer have the resources to > > build sophisticated new mouse traps. You will never hear from these > > developers who have been turned away. You will never know who they are > > and how many there were. They've just disappeared in the mist. > > > You don't do this. You don't ride to success on the coattails and > > efforts of others and then turn around and plunder them. It is wrong. > > > Twitter is not the first to do this, but it still does not make it > > right. > > > PS. Sorry for the duplicate. I initially posted this to the incorrect > > thread. > > > -- > > To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text -
