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Comment by ColinWright | Hacker News Reader

    Facebook is expected to say that it will turn its
    app - called Messenger - which has 500m users, into
    a "platform". That means others will be able to
    develop software for it (for gaming, hotel bookings,
    tickets and so on).

Doesn't FaceBook have form in encouraging people to use its interfaces and facilities, and then either cutting them off or starting to charge unexpectedly? I wonder what guarantees they will give that they will provide continuity of service.

Certainly I'd be incorporating an exit strategy, and my game plan would be to leverage off FB to start with, to grow as fast as possible, develop my own community and eco-system, and then be able to shed FB and replace it with something else.

I wouldn't trust them.

But that's just me. I'm interested to see what the HN community thinks.

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There is no such guarantee. Right now, the publishing industry is in its own conundrum on how to deal with Facebook. FB is reportedly in talks with content providers, including the New York Times, to publish content directly on FB's platform...the ostensible reason being that it provides a better user experience. Publishers would get more eyeballs and presumably some cut of the ad revenue, and publishers who don't go for this, well, they may find their external content more and more deprioritized. As the Atlantic pointed out [1], back in 2011, Facebook announced "social reader" apps and news orgs jumped on...and when FB decided less than a year later to drop the effort, well, all those efforts were wasted.

FB is in a much stronger position now, and conversely, publishers have only gotten weaker. Ideally, publishers would take the tack that you've described...FB will undoubtedly provide some kind of API that would make it easy for news orgs to export their CMS data as easily as they do for their print and web editions...if publishers don't like how things are going, then they just pull out, and their API points to another platform.

The problem is that publishers are very weak financially and have shown very little ability to innovate. And consumers have shown mostly apathy about the way their daily attention is diverted to social networking and linkbait...so news publishers have serious existential issues on top of their financial ones.

1. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/facebo...

I'm not completely sure if there are clear-cut examples of bait-and-switch. Possibly 'pages' where initially the people who liked them would see all posts until it gradually decreased to 10-15% unless you paid. But that is somewhat justifiable by fb's attempt to keep the news feed relevant.

But it is an obvious threat for the 'open web'. Look at what happened to email. My inbox is a great archive for my social life pre-2010, but since then it's just (some) business and lots of transactional mails. With email people had a choice of clients. With messenger you're stuck with whatever Facebook offers. Same with RSS vs. Twitter.

There's no immediate and direct harm, which is why it'll continue. It's comparable to the privatisation of public spaces. People used to meet on main street, now they go to the mall. The latter is more convenient, possibly cheaper and has the (5) starbucks you expect. There is no harm, unless you live on the sidelines of society: as a hobo, or, even worse, protester.

If only there were a business model for something like diaspora...

You don't have to trust them. But using their platform, you can reach such a gigantic amount of users, it's better to use it anyway. Even if they screw you afterwards.

I think at this point it's irresponsible to do anything other than what you're describing. There's no reason to expect FB to change their strategy.

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