Convoluted TOS and "Open" APIs Will Be the Death of Us

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15 pointsjdrock3 comments

No matter how good my idea might be, I won't build on somebody else's platform (for more than a hobby project) until I'm treated as a partner. The cost of developing something and the risk of having access turned off with no legal recourse is too great.

It surprises me that investors would be willing to sink money into companies that are on such precarious footing.

Agreed. The obvious exception are the APIs that you pay for such as payment gateways and other things you don't want to reinvent.

The APIs with problems tend to be those 'free' ones (usually social related) which are just granting access to their data and really just provide ways to create neat mashups.

Cheers from another hacker in Utah :)

Being able to pay instead of getting cut off would be a better than the current situation. Lots of devs are (and the ones that aren't should be) unwilling to build upon an API they don't control, or have an promises for.

Hopefully the prices will be reasonable - what ever reasonable is.

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