6 ms·

Seen this story play out so many times. I audited a company years ago that claimed to have excellent, personal almost, relationship with Google and all needed p

by drra 2y ago

Seen this story play out so many times. I audited a company years ago that claimed to have excellent, personal almost, relationship with Google and all needed paperwork to use their platform as a core of their business. They went bust 6 months after because of "unexpected" change of Google's product strategy. Real lesson here is to avoid single points of failure, regardless if it's API, people or partners. Ask yourself a question if there's a single entity that can kill your business and remove that reliance.

siva7 2y ago
That's not going to work in practice as money and time are limited. Choose your partners wisely but don't obsess over the scenario of them going bankrupt.
jauntywundrkind 2y ago
It's so sad that we're at such a devoid barren state. There was so much hype & excitement in web2 age, about APIs & intertwingularity. Humanity was going to keep improving & iterating & crafting ever neater ideas. Now it's all bureaucracy & lawyers arrayed to defend the cloud-keeps, moats & walls. The user & agency of the world has been steady dimished, eroded away by ever advancing legal IP Protectionism.
fencepost 2y ago
If you're depending on the continued existence of any Google product beyond GMail, Google Cloud and advertising you should really consider fallback positions. The existence of Youtube is also guaranteed, but the existence of any particular API or service that you might depend on? Not so much. Hell they'd probably consider killing GMail if they didn't need the accounts to tie advertising impressions to individuals.
- jowea 2y ago
  Not even search makes the cut?
  - autoexec 2y ago
    Search is already dying. Google doesn't need it.
    - StressedDev 2y ago
      Do you have a source for this? I suspect search makes at least 75% of Google’s profits.
      - autoexec 2y ago
        see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30347719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30347719 Google used to need Search in order to learn about the intimate details of our lives. It's how they knew what we were interested in, what our medical problems were, what we were learning, and what we were thinking about. Now they have chrome giving google people's entire browsing history, android devices collecting realtime data on what people are doing offline, where they are and who they are with. Google also has products like fitbit, nest, and gmail that gather still more data for google. Google doesn't need Search to spy on us anymore, so they haven't invested in keeping it useful. In fact, it's better for google if you can't find what you want and have to make multiple searches for information because it gives them more chances to throw ads at you, and the harder it is for people to find websites using Search the more sites might feel like they have no choice but to pay Google to keep them at the top of the search results. People who find Search increasingly useless though are turning to alternatives and for many people AI could end up replacing google's Search product as the first thing they turn to. I would not count on Search staying around forever.
        greg_V 2y ago
        They need search for different reasons: it's their biggest moat against Meta by being the start page of the internet for a great many number of people. A whole lot of browsing sessions start with search and end with search, and this way Google can claim attribution for virtually every traffic a website gets outside of direct hits. This keeps people developing content to please Google and running ads on Google platforms to get more traffic.
WA 2y ago
That is only half-true. On the one hand, I agree and I would never build a serious business on another single entity. But on the other hand, OP built an app that ran successfully for 10 years, generating some revenue. Most products have an expected expiration date and you can provide a useful service (that generates revenue) by building on other platforms, even if it won't last forever. By now I missed more opportunities by having the mindset of "not relying on other people's APIs" than real changes/shutdowns would warrant this kind of caution.

by drra 2y ago

siva7 2y ago

That's not going to work in practice as money and time are limited. Choose your partners wisely but don't obsess over the scenario of them going bankrupt.

jauntywundrkind 2y ago

It's so sad that we're at such a devoid barren state. There was so much hype & excitement in web2 age, about APIs & intertwingularity. Humanity was going to keep improving & iterating & crafting ever neater ideas. Now it's all bureaucracy & lawyers arrayed to defend the cloud-keeps, moats & walls. The user & agency of the world has been steady dimished, eroded away by ever advancing legal IP Protectionism.

fencepost 2y ago

If you're depending on the continued existence of any Google product beyond GMail, Google Cloud and advertising you should really consider fallback positions. The existence of Youtube is also guaranteed, but the existence of any particular API or service that you might depend on? Not so much. Hell they'd probably consider killing GMail if they didn't need the accounts to tie advertising impressions to individuals.

jowea 2y ago
Not even search makes the cut?
- autoexec 2y ago
  Search is already dying. Google doesn't need it.
  - StressedDev 2y ago
    Do you have a source for this? I suspect search makes at least 75% of Google’s profits.
    - autoexec 2y ago
      see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30347719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30347719 Google used to need Search in order to learn about the intimate details of our lives. It's how they knew what we were interested in, what our medical problems were, what we were learning, and what we were thinking about. Now they have chrome giving google people's entire browsing history, android devices collecting realtime data on what people are doing offline, where they are and who they are with. Google also has products like fitbit, nest, and gmail that gather still more data for google. Google doesn't need Search to spy on us anymore, so they haven't invested in keeping it useful. In fact, it's better for google if you can't find what you want and have to make multiple searches for information because it gives them more chances to throw ads at you, and the harder it is for people to find websites using Search the more sites might feel like they have no choice but to pay Google to keep them at the top of the search results. People who find Search increasingly useless though are turning to alternatives and for many people AI could end up replacing google's Search product as the first thing they turn to. I would not count on Search staying around forever.
      - greg_V 2y ago
        They need search for different reasons: it's their biggest moat against Meta by being the start page of the internet for a great many number of people. A whole lot of browsing sessions start with search and end with search, and this way Google can claim attribution for virtually every traffic a website gets outside of direct hits. This keeps people developing content to please Google and running ads on Google platforms to get more traffic.

WA 2y ago

That is only half-true. On the one hand, I agree and I would never build a serious business on another single entity. But on the other hand, OP built an app that ran successfully for 10 years, generating some revenue. Most products have an expected expiration date and you can provide a useful service (that generates revenue) by building on other platforms, even if it won't last forever. By now I missed more opportunities by having the mindset of "not relying on other people's APIs" than real changes/shutdowns would warrant this kind of caution.