How Not to Be a Platform: Twitter's Firehose Mistake

Just yesterday I read in the Vancouver, Washington paper "The Columbian" of a lawsuit that a fruit distributor just filed against a railroad company. The fruit vendor had been shipping apples and pears to the midwest; this turned out to be hugely popular with the result that it was offered a $30M acquisition.

However the railroad is no longer willing to ship the apples as it is reallocating its resources to transport crude oil instead.

I don't doubt that in the short term the oil is more profitable to the oil company, but I expect that even without the lawsuit, they will lose in the end. Those whose livelihoods depend on shipping their product will look for other means of transport.