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Comment by declan | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately I'd say the headline on the linked Medium.com post (by the creator of Routebuilder) is a bit misleading.

I feel for the author, but Google is not "forcing Routebuilder to shut down." Google is instead telling the owner of Routebuilder to find another API to use. Routebuilder can find another API, pay to license data, etc. There are alternatives rather than "shut[ing] down."

I know this probably sucks for the author, but this is the risk you take when building your product on top of someone else's API without a separate contract in hand--as many Twitter developers found out firsthand a few years ago. Their service, their rules.

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Isn't that a bit of a semantic nitpick? They're telling him to rework his site (or his business model) in fourteen days. Whether they have the right to treat developers on their platform like crud or not, it doesn't change the fact that he is effectively being shut down.

If you had a dog walking service with a route that crossed my property without permission, and after some time I asked you not to do so, you might write a blog post trumpeting: "Property owner is shutting me down." But others might disagree.

There may be ways to preserve the viability of your dog walking service. You can enter into an arrangement with me to use my property (which might include a nominal fee), you can take a different route (inconvenient for you and your customers, but not my problem), etc.

If the only way you can run your dog walking service is to take a shortcut across my property without my permission, well, then the world is sending you a message about the viability of your business.

Again, the mere fact that you and your dogs have grown accustomed to crossing my property does not mean I'm "shut[ing] you down." And next time, maybe you should secure written permission before starting a business based on the assumption that you'll have the right to use someone else's property forever without paying.

I definitely think we'd be in a much better place if people building on platforms had the ability to negotiate for some level of assurance of continuity. It's important for people to have confidence in the platforms they build on.

As an update, Google has backed down, and said they made an error, and they won't force RouteBuilder to shutter in the next two weeks. But it sounds like the developer has learned his lesson... as time permits, he's going to start working on moving to another platform.

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