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Comment by codethatwerks | Hacker News Reader

Is there a name for this rugpull that is a recurring theme in tech, when you rely solely on another service bringing attention to your service.

E.g. when youtube cancels you or your adwords account is blocked so you no longer make money

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Tim Bray used sharecropping to describe a similar scenario almost 21 years ago:

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePla...

https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/14/ShareCrop...

https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/04/09/Google-Us...

I've heard it called "Platform risk". Also "Playing in someone else's walled garden", or something along those lines. I realize that's not a term for the inevitable rugpull, but that's the closest I can think of.

You live on that platform, you die on that platform.

Building your castle in someone else's kingdom.

And obviously the Germans have a word and a law for it: Erbpacht (https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erbpacht)

Translates as “emphyteusis”, a word I’d never heard of before.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/emphyteusis

Building your mobile home on rented land.

For Apple specifically it's called "Sherlocking".

That one is a little different. That's when Apple clones your app into their OS as a core feature, thereby completely killing your market.

It usually implies Apple deliberately studied your specific app or replicated it based on details revealed in B2B licensing/acquisition meetings, similar to what MS pulled with Stacker back in the 90s.

https://thehustle.co/sherlocking-explained

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics

Don't even have to go back to the 90s, just recently Microsoft pulled that with AppGet.

Sherlocking is also considered a good thing nowadays. It acts to expand the market by bringing about awareness of such a feature.

Yeah the built-in way is not as good and featureful as dedicated app's but now more people are aware it's a thing and get the app.

Like sleep cycle app is only rising in popularity even though ios has bedtime now.

"Sharecropping" is the old name, and it still works fine.

I'm a game developer and I'm _kind_ of interested in building something for Fortnite's big third party store, or for Roblox, but its just too risky

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