pino82

Of course it's generic and perhaps not a technically correct statement. And now? Why should they spend time on writing you nicer emails? What was your value to them? Zero? Or is that too optimistic actually?

If it wasn't informal, then fine! Then better take your contracts and bring them to the court, instead of fishing for sympathy in some web forums.

Since ~15 years, people got the idea that all the WhatsApps, Instagrams or Twitters around them aren't companies, but kind of public infrastructure. They all knew that it's a wrong assumption, but it's sooo convenient, and at some point, people around you force you in that direction, even if you don't like all those walled gardens. And once this wrong philosophy was established, people started escalating it to some smaller shops, I guess. Those are also the guys that complain when some 3rd party Reddit or Youtube hobby clients must disappear. They just have no understanding at all about some basic mechanics of human interaction. The biggest problem: There are entire generations of people nowadays with that misunderstanding.

Yes, I got that, but why should they bother? Your understanding is that you were business partners, while in fact, you were just lucky enough to get access to their service for some years.

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!

What is the precise meaning of 'dev relations' here? What is the actual relation? They haven't ordered him to dev sth.

It was never different. Just, with the advent of iPhone, FB, WhatsApp, Youtube, etc, a lot of people basically decided to ignore this fact of life. So good and for so long that they completely forgot it. They forgot it good enough that even their childs got no education in that regard. And every some days, someone gets a lesson. ;)

Why should Yelp not throw you under the bus for money?

The problem was that (impersonal) you stopped understanding basic mechanisms of human interaction. For no real reason.

If the price is too high for you, here is my idea for you: don't use their product. ;)

why? for what?

There was no contract and nothing. Even instant revocation would be okay. Why not?

I was just wondering why - for multiple screens of text - nobody came and just posted some pointless youtube link.

But this case seems to be funny at least (acc to your text): A YT link about the 'old, open web'. YMMD!

Precisely that.

Funnily, if I understood correctly, he already had that lesson with Facebook. Let's see what comes next...

My sympathy is veeery limited. But once you have an app that does the exact opposite, please tell me!!

And, just in that particular case: I'm veery okay if that would be a cloud service.

I'd say, no you had no shared customers. Yelp had the customers, and you wrote some app that uses Yelp. For no real reason you assumed that you could be part of them (as with Facebook earlier). Sure you had some kind of informal permission at first. And then they revoked it. That's their right to do, right? Maybe you should not write Facebook or Yelp apps, if you are neither Facebook nor Yelp nor asked by them to write clients for their walled gardens. Or if you really want, set up an actual license agreement with them. Those networks are walled gardens and they don't want to cooperate with you that way. They are just not those kinds of shops which you can cuddle with. If you want to create something that has an own value, create something more than just another Faceyelptwitterddit frontend.

The good thing: You took your lesson. Maybe this time it was sufficient to actually learn sth.