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This is a huge problem lately. In the last two weeks we've seen hostile action from Apple, Facebook, Ning, Stack Overflow, and Twitter. Building something with other peoples tools is too risky at this point. If you're successful, they'll just change the terms of service, ban you, and implement your product.

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I think the trick is to have a long term plan that makes you less tied to the platform, if not get out from it entirely, but use the advantages of whatever platform you pick to jump start you into cash flow and notice that lets you find a market and then build from there.

Trick is figuring out how much time you'll need to move out from under the shadow of the service you are hooking on to, and that I'm not sure if can be easily figured in many situations.

Although it's risky, building on top of another platform reduces your marketing time by greatly since you get free eyeballs already. Plus its more rewarding to build something that succeeded but getting screwed by a new TOS than it is to build something and waiting to get an audience and never succeeding. In other words, it's better to fail early or succeed early than it is to be in neither.

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