The Future of Parse
blog.parse.com
blog.parse.com
And, I have a hunch that all that stuff on their blog about how nothing's gonna change is even more bullshit than it usually is when a cool startup gets acquired by a walmart. Because since it's Facebook buying them, Parse isn't going to get most of the future customers they might have gotten.
Most developers probably understand at a visceral level that using Facebook as the opaque backend provider for your customers' private information would be like using Oracle as your open-source community relations manager, or using McDonald's as your nutritional consultant.
I do think there is now a particularly acute need for an open source project that implements Parse's REST API. Maybe a Python project using Flask? If I had the time...
As a user of Parse, I'm done. I have zero confidence that the service will continue as is for very long, despite the best intentions of the original team. Biggest concerns are requiring FB auth, FB's flippant attitude towards privacy, and the engineering culture mismatch.
This seems completely counter to the way Parse has operated so far. Perhaps on a personal level it's a great fit, but in operation? Doesn't seem like it.
Edit: Okay, I went over to the developer site and it looks like things have improved more from the docs side. Progress! Can you say with certainty all the new examples work?
Any ideas why we (that includes me) behave this way?
Facebook have shown time and time again that they do not care about the privacy of their users. They are not going to get that trust back any time soon. In my opinion the assumption that they could "get away with it" was a long term bad mistake on Zuckerberg's part.
As an aside, I don't post on Facebook anymore once I realised that my deleted data was not really deleted. Even today, almost a year and a half after deleting all my posts, check-ins and photos, my profile still shows 3 "hidden" check-ins. Until a few months ago, a "deleted" (a.k.a hidden) album was still showing in the album count. Facebook has a few bugs when they do their entity counts, which show up their logical rather than physical deletes. Sorry, but when I delete something, I expect it to be deleted, not just marked as deleted.
I don't trust them as far as I can throw them, and I really can't throw a 8000 lb gorilla very far.
This acquisition just created a better opportunity for a new player. I for one cannot trust Facebook's handling of their data- let alone my apps data.
This isn't a full backend as a service, but for data storage we are hoping to hit a good 80% point where folks can use Couchbase Lite and pretty much just rely on their mobile app chops / not have to worry about the backend.
Parse is hands down the best of the bunch, though.
Very few care deeply for the original product -- just as much as needed for the eventual payoff. If they did they wouldn't let it dissolve into the hands of some humongous company like Google/Facebook et al (especially since 9 out of 10 of such acquisitions end with the product being halted).
Sometimes the original thing isn't even a product. It's a bunch of free stuff offered to get as many users as possible that could never stand of it's own (no monetization options) and only a acquire could save it (the buying company can then use it as a acqui-hire, to get some press and street cred, to build something else, as part of a larger, different offering, etc).
I'm sure one can think of one or two such cases. But can they think of ten?
So that reasoning I don't think applies. The founders know that the product will go down the drain post acquisition, but they still do it for the money.
Another point is that developing businesses as products is aslo neccesary. This allows bigger companies with cash flow but without the talent to simply shop around for their next offering.
That'd be like boiling the ocean.