
The Firebase Story - allenleein
https://hackernoon.com/how-to-build-a-product-loved-by-millions-and-get-acquired-by-google-the-firebase-story-82dab4e3e80c
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valuearb
I like Firebase, but will never use it unless I absolutely have to. It's not
anything they've done, it's what happened to Parse. I built a half dozen apps
using Parse as the cloud backend because it was so easy.

My last project my CTO chose Parse to build a backend for a Website. Parse
Cloud Code was fairly limited, we'd have to do a separate server for Stripe
for example, but again it made the specific client project really easy to do
(and he had been tasked on building it really cheap given our crazy CEO had
given the client a fixed bid). I knew it was screwy but said "At least we can
be confident that Parse isn't going away any time soon" since Facebook had
bought them.

I finished the site on time, on budget, the web service demoed great at it's
launch show, and the client signed up a ton of customers and was just waiting
for our e-commerce implementation to launch their important new business.

Then Parse was canceled.

~~~
mbleigh
Firebase engineer here. We recognize the anxiety that comes with a hosted
solution. That being said, Firebase has seen enormous and growing investment
from Google (see e.g. Fabric acquisition).

Firebase feeds directly into two huge businesses that Google cares deeply
about: Cloud and Ads. I can't predict the distant future, but unless Google's
core business shifts drastically Firebase isn't going anywhere.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Firebase isn't going anywhere.

If experience has taught us anything, it's that it's pretty naive to say this
about _anything_ owned by Google. I mean, things like Google Wave and Google
Buzz were huge initiatives at one point too.

~~~
mbleigh
Is it possible things will change? Of course. I was just trying to illustrate
that, unlike Parse and Facebook, Firebase has a clear relationship with core
Google businesses.

We will never be able to fully dispell these worries, but I think there's
pretty strong evidence in support of Firebase's prospects. Our developers will
have to judge if the value we deliver is higher than the small-but-non-zero
chance of it going away.

I certainly think it is, but I'm pretty biased. :)

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iliketosleep
from a marketing perspective it's clever, but in in inauthenticity of it makes
me shudder. from the quote about devs being people who "spend their days
looking for missing semicolons in code" to the hipster "welcome to firebase"
painting. now it has evolved into something that's now being forced down my
throat by google - no wonder they are, as mentioned in the article, "the
backend for over a millions apps!"

granted, the core idea of firebase is good. but how they went about represents
much of what i dislike about silicon valley.

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wolframhempel
Come on, they did a great job creating traction for what was a really novel
concept. A lot of Backend as a Service offerings tend to be hosted versions of
existing solutions or "it's like - but for" products - but Firebase needed to
be communicated from scratch (and I'm saying as a member of
[https://deepstreamhub.com/](https://deepstreamhub.com/) (shameless plug)
trying to overcome similar challenges.)

~~~
stemuk
Really like the fact that deepstreamhub doesn't have a strong vendor lock-in
like Firebase. I feel like it would ease many developers minds if they offered
some sort of open source version, if only for the sake of being able to change
your stack.

The option to export your users data in a RethinkDB compatible manner would
probably do the job too.

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onmobiletemp
Im new to web stuff and this kind of confuses me. How would firebase ever make
money if it didnt get bought? What outcome do investors expect?

~~~
lazyasciiart
By charging their users, the way the rest of the world works.

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WA
What a dumb article. It would've been so much better if it didn't try to turn
this story into an _advice-piece_. Take-away for copywriters: Don't say "you"
if you really mean "we":

> _How to Build a Product Loved by Millions and Get Acquired by Google_

> _How to Build an Industry Defining Tool in 4 Easy Steps_

> _Marketing Your Way to a Million Users_

Come on, readers aren't that stupid. But maybe it's just my personal distaste
~~

~~~
gumby
In addition, stuff like this is a turn off: "They sensed the market craved a
general purpose abstraction to handle the arcane art of XHR requests, "

"Crave" is simply not the right word.

~~~
farxalaxis
Yeah, hyperbolic statements abound. I laugh at the thought of 'arcane art'
being used to describe XHR requests!

Abstractions awesome and can be very powerful...but please...

