Comment by paranoiacblack | Hacker News Reader

Comment by paranoiacblack | Hacker News Reader

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I agree that Facebook started a "war", but I don't think any of these companies want to "close us in" any more than they did when they first started. Sure, you can look at the closing of Google Reader as the antithesis of openness and RSS but you'd somehow seem to miss that Google, Facebook, and Twitter still support a lot of APIs that promote openness and interoperability. Actually, they continue to release more and more APIs as do other startups (i.e. Github).

Openness and interoperability aren't going away, they're merely being refined. That might mean taking away the hacker's toy for a bit while some kinks get worked out (i.e. Google's Jabber issue and the switch to Blink). It might also mean that we live in a monoculture for a while (Webkit). But regardless, the web is steadily improving and no matter how much you all try to spin it, RSS and Google Reader really aren't the martyrs you claim them to be. It sucks that even a successful product can be mercilessly shut down by the evil Google tyrants, but it shouldn't be surprising at all.

Sometimes companies make decisions that hurt a part of their user base for some perceived benefit for other users. Did Google fuck up by closing Reader? Probably. But it's not the end of the world.

Of course they want to close us in. Or, more technically, they feel commercially compelled to do so.

There are only so many eyeballs, and right now being very sticky is an obviously viable strategy for dominance. Google didn't get into phone operating systems because they knew or cared much about them. They did it because their revenue base was under long-term threat. (Hell, Google is trying experiments to see if they can get in front of your actual eyeballs, intermediating your entire waking life.) And Facebook tried taking over people's phones for exactly the same reason.

Talk to the Googlers who have left over the last few years, and you'll hear very clearly that things have changed internally.

What you're saying is that a company wants you to use their product and no one else's. Sure, that's how companies work. They aren't compelled to allow anyone from the outside to contribute. This is not closing us in. Unless I'm missing something, people are still able to choose the applications they install and use on their mobile phones, and I don't see that as a lock-in in the slightest. I understand the internal changes that have happened over the years at Google, but to say that Google no longer supports or does not plan to support openness or interoperability is either the word of a prophet or Google Reader-inspired sensationalism.

"What you're saying is that a company wants you to use their product and no one else's. Sure, that's how companies work"

Uhm, what?

So the company selling my milk want me to drink milk, just milk and nothing but milk?

I thought one of the founding ideas of capitalism is that you can strike deals that benefit everyone. That you don't have to screw anyone over.

You're misreading what you quoted. I'm telling you that the company that sells you milk doesn't want you to drink anyone else's milk because that's how businesses work. They might sell some cheese too, but they also don't want you eating anyone's else's cheese. Also, perhaps that is one of the founding ideas of capitalism, but our modern day version is far away from that. Capitalism screws people over by the day in America.

Yeah, I understand, and my example was bad.

Internet is such a big space (unlike milk) that if an Internet-company wants you to use their Internet-stuff and no-one else's Internet-stuff .. well, I don't know what will happen, but it can't be good.

Capitalism screws people over by the day in America

Finally something we can agree on

Good thing I am not saying that.

I am saying that Google's commitment to openness has declined substantially over the years, and that this is due to their interpretation of the commercial context.

The problem is that you are depending on commercial entities for basic Internet infrastructure: search, social graph & newsfeed, and real time communications.

These companies' goals are not necessarily aligned with goals of an interoperable Internet. This has been repeated over and over again: Twitter locking down its API, the percentage of ads on Google search, lack of privacy on Facebook, etc...

You probably need open source/Wikipedia style alternatives to prevent abuse. They don't have to replace the commercial ones, just provide counterbalance. I think people have tried to create open versions of Twitter, Facebook, and possibly Google but they haven't succeeded.

Wikipedia is an outlier in that it is a non-commercial service versus primarily being code or protocols. Services have ongoing costs which make it much harder for non-commercial entities to survive.

I think the Firefox(?) mobile os is a good start.

>You probably need open source/Wikipedia style alternatives to prevent abuse.

Wikipedia is a bad example, as there is plenty of abuse there [1].

[1] http://www.smoblogger.com/wikipedia-sucks/ http://homepage.univie.ac.at/horst.prillinger/blog/archives/... http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100506025259AA...

Many more, but it's hard to find them since putting "wikipedia" in your search now causes google to look up those words on wikipedia itself first...

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