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This is a really good article and I agree with a majority of the thesis. Basically, if you try to build a service on one of the major players platforms, you are

This is a really good article and I agree with a majority of the thesis. Basically, if you try to build a service on one of the major players platforms, you are susceptible to being cut off or damaged in one way or another. This occurred with Meerkat-Twitter, Zynga-Facebook, Demand Media-Google and many others. However, it is possible to succeed. And the counterpoint is paypal and ebay. Most people don't remember that paypal was building their service inside of ebay and ebay was not at all friendly about it. In fact, ebay bought a rival payment company and tried to offer incentives to their sellers to switch from paypal. But paypal still won out. They key is to get major support from the platform's own users - like paypal did with ebay's sellers. So it is possible to succeed on someone else's "p"latform.

harigov 11y ago
Good point. However, eBay was a classified and auctions site and paypal was complimenting it. The examples suggested by OP are more competitive in nature. The only case I can think of is Instagram on Facebook. However, even in that case, Instagram was providing an equivalent, if not superior, user experience within Facebook. I believe it turned out to be a smart choice in the end.
throwaway88991 11y ago
Paypal and ebay is not a clean counterpoint. The backstory (I worked at ebay in 2000) is that Billpoint (ebay Payments) was an ebay-Wells Fargo joint venture with a good CSR staff but no marketing funding and limited ebay integration. (I was laughed at when I asked if there was a mktg. budget for a billboard, or anything else.) ebay used ebay Payments to learn about payment risk mgmt., then when they were comfortable bought Paypal.