That's fair, but you'd think their admin interface would show how long an app had been active for and any notes about the app from the beginning.
Regardless, even if it had been active for 10 months not 10 years, 4-days notice is unacceptable.
Regardless, even if it had been active for 10 months not 10 years, 4-days notice is unacceptable.
Heck, in many companies I have encountered that they don't even know who is using API keys they've issued to third parties, especially over generations of systems. I am impressed that after getting email approval for an app a decade ago, Yelp still had contact details enough to let the O/P know!
None of that negates the issue of 4-days notice and Yelp shooting themselves in the foot by removing access to an app which redirects people to their website. But someone in executive management made a decision on the basis that they wanted revenue from the API overhead, wanted a slice of other people's pie and that's that.
To the O/Ps point about subscription, there was a UK food app which gave you restaurant food safety scores taken from the food safety agency "Scores on The Doors" it's gone now but I paid a few £ a year for it and never had an issue. If the Yelp pricing is sustainable at that level it's not a bad idea to pay for API access, Yelp has to pay for their servers and a portion of the API calls won't be converted to traffic. Who knows if Yelp still has a sustainable business? Maybe that API thing doesn't pay for itself? I don't know.
Which underlines what I concluded long ago: the best and most durable form of identity on the internet is rooted in the ability to pay money. Any identity that is free to create is doomed.
Ideally they'd have a notes field against developer apps and a robust process for recording this kind of thing - but I've worked for companies, so it doesn't surprise me at all that there's no good mechanism in place for that.
In real life, sometimes months isn't enough. On August 5, UPS will complete their API transition to OAuth based authorization after many months of process. Many of my customers haven't responded to my attempts to warn them about the change. I've resigned myself at this point to August 5 being a crazy day.
Four weeks is the statutory minimum annual leave entitlement here in New Zealand. Most people I know get more.
Don't sweat the refunds too much (unless someone is being really rude about it). Apple certainly won't.
Btw, I'm pretty sure what happened was that this conversion was planned and carried out, but nobody was assigned the responsibility to tell developers. It was clearly done last minute using the most convenient form.
Right, the biggest thing is a failure of communication. There should have been emails months ago, not 4-days (1 business day Friday->Monday) before.
If you had an actual contract, it would be a different story. Your product would still be not more than some UI to some walled garden, and nothing particularly valuable, but at least you would be officially permitted to do so.
So you basically sold something to Apple users that you don't actually own, and that is completely out of your control, and that was always in danger to just stop working suddenly.
And, on the other hand, I'm sure you've implemented a (for a hobby) decent app, and maybe you actually brought a handful of new visitors to them (which wouldn't have just used their website if your app wouldn't exist). But do you really think that at Yelp they are sitting there and just think how they can return the favor?
They basically think "well, that funny dude has now played enough". You never were a partner for them. Just what people call " useful idi*t" (sorry, but that's just the term ^^) at best. They haven't talked about you at their christmas party!
It goes both ways.
Btw, he had a contract.
> Btw, he had a contract.
Then fine, go to the court with it, end of story.
/s