> However, you built your something with a foundation out of your control.
The trouble isn't this necessarily; a lot of business models don't exist unless another company does. The App Store is a good example of this; if Apple just disappears then so many other businesses disappear with it.
The trouble is the fact that the relationship between these two parties is so one-sided. Unless these third party Twitter clients have some sort of contractual foundation to stand upon, then yeah, what they've enjoyed so far is basically akin to an ad-hoc, at-will support, that can be terminated at any time with no notice, for no reason.
> I know you think you’re smarter than everyone at Twitter. But those who really know what they are doing have a lot more respect for the engineers who built this insanity. There are always good intentions.
You ignored one possibility - that twitter engineers, or people managing them might be just incompetent and all of that might just be overly complex POS
There is that weird disgusting trend to assume just because company got big that means the tech choices were immaculate, and not everything else there is to successful companies.
You can make perfectly well doing company on totally mediocre product that hit the niche at right time
> I just find it strange how developer-hostile twitter is, considering the community it once fostered.
Think about the money and it's not so strange. Everyone has a price.
I'm not saying it's right, but it's not a mystery. The got big off the backs of others and they've been screwing them over ever since. People building stuff on top of Twitter are crazy. They've been developer hostile for years and years now.
> I'm thinking of joining Twitter to work on their anti-abuse efforts.
The abuse issue on their platform is the main issue with most potential buyers. I would imagine by now they have their core services running on auto pilot (minus SAN failures).
> If you are a company then bad stories on Twitter could cause a significant drop in business.
But does it cause a drop seems like the pertinent question. New media isn't like the old media where bad press was big deal. Maybe it's just not anymore for exactly these reasons.
> You have a new player in social media (yet we apparently need to break up the big tech companies because you can't enter the market anymore).
The existence of competition doesn't mean they're within the spirit of anti-trust regulations. Twitter using their network to eclipse other markets would be the concern.
> Why would purchasing Twitter and then driving off it's distinctive user base make economic sense?
Why try to make a service less full of jerks? One of the main reasons I don’t use Twitter is because of the vitriol. I might consider using it if they remove the 5% of loud jerks. I suppose there is some way to make money without people screaming and being rude.
> Why were they keen to provide better support to customers contacting them on Twitter than customers contacting them via email, phone or their own support site?
I don't agree with the framing that companies were intentionally providing better support via Twitter.
Social media is usually handled by a dedicated marketing team/person; Twitter used to be a completely open platform where people loudly complaining would get noticed. The result was an ecosystem where marketing teams were incentivized to help resolve people's issues and avoid negative PR.
Kneecapping this interaction hurts Twitter and its users, not the companies. Twitter no longer has a strong network effect and is no longer open/accessible, so there's little reason for companies to pay even if the use case made sense.
> Because despite you thinking they are horrific companies many other people don't.
Thats exactly how a lot of people will view Twitter. You might think its horrible and they are terrible for laying of people, but plenty of good engineers ready to fill those roles for the money without the need of having free snacks, free coffee, rest booths, ping pong area, LED illuminated reading rooms, etc etc etc. Twitter will be fine.
>> "Unfortunately we do not have the resources to fend off a large company like Twitter to maintain our mark which we believe whole heartedly is rightfully ours. Therefore, we have decided to shut down Twitpic."
Is this supposed to be serious? You're shutting down your company because you're stubborn and not getting what you want??
> There are so many things that can go wrong, so many other things that will set your company on fire without warnings, and that doesn't give people the time to think strategically on how to tackle certain difficult scenarios.
> never seen such amount of power in the hands of a few companies.
These two points seem contradictory. If you are very powerful, you can draw on great resources, and you can address many things.
Twitter has more than enough resource to prevent it from being the extremely harmful manipulation machine that it is.
There is no excuse beyond “we want money more than a healthy society.”
And is that good?
reply