And why not just try? What if the open platform succeeds? Even if the chance of success is 0.01%, it is worth trying. Also, a million such attempts by million such teams can fail. Only one team needs to succeed. Once.
What can you do that is different from Twitter and cannot easily be copied by them?
Linux has nearly completely taken over from UNIX and it did this (at least originally) by simply being more open.
If chance of success * probable value of outcome + (the converse of failure) - cost > 0, it's worth it. Is that really the case here? Personally I think you are overestimating chance of success by a wide margin.
The overall equation looks like this: success = (team1_success or team2_success or ... or teamn_success)
Niche players might be able establish a de facto standard for shared profile data though.
No telling. That's the point.
> And why not just try?
Because human hours are the most valuable asset on this planet. If you have a .01% chance of success then it's not necessarily worth trying. But that's up to the person who's putting in the time. In this case some people do believe it's worth it and by all means they should try.
I just wonder if there's an option that's more than .01%.
There really are two types of people in the world: lottery players and everyone else.
I guess I should elaborate on my previous comment: I am saying that there is no reason to look at someone actually trying something big and say "Dude, give up! It won't work!" no matter how rooted in reality you think your choices are.
IMHO it is not helpful or interesting to view the world in binary terms as "lottery players and everyone else". In the risk profile continuum, you're drawing a line at your max risk tolerance level and viewing it as a binary choice. But it is a continuum. Someone else may view everyone not working for the government with pension benefits as a lottery player.