
Facebook ends platform policy banning apps that copy its features - brandnewlow
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/04/facebook-allows-competitors/
======
subdane
Reminded of this Chamath quote attributed to Bill Gates in an interview with
Semil Shah about Facebook's platform.

"I remember when we raised money from Bill Gates...and Gates said something
along the lines of, 'That’s a crock of shit. This isn’t a platform. A platform
is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the
company that creates it. Then it’s a platform.'"

[http://haystack.vc/2015/09/17/transcript-chamath-at-
strictly...](http://haystack.vc/2015/09/17/transcript-chamath-at-strictlyvcs-
insider-series/)

~~~
mehblahwhatevs
> "I remember when we raised money from Bill Gates...and Gates said something
> along the lines of, 'That’s a crock of shit. This isn’t a platform. A
> platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the
> value of the company that creates it. Then it’s a platform.'"

Interesting. But Facebook's platform != Facebook, so I don't understand the
maxim that "the value of everybody that uses the platform must exceed the
value of the company that created it" in order for it to be true.

You could say Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store are platforms, they
even offer services (api/web-services, libs, frameworks, etc.) and devs build
on-top and make living off it. But that ISN'T the company. Google has search,
cars, ads, etc. Apple has it's own crap going.

Furthermore, Apple is worth 1 trillion dollars. Must the value of the platform
as determined by "everybody that uses it" exceed 1 trillion? Or must it exceed
the yearly revenue of Apple instead?

~~~
Benjammer
I believe this use of the word "platform" in this context is a much more
specific meaning where it's a counterpoint to the idea of an "aggregator." It
comes up in discussions about modern large tech companies being "aggregators"
or "platforms," and this is the point (allegedly) Gates is making here, that
Facebook is much more an aggregator of content that users bring into the
walled garden than they are an economic platform for other businesses, which
is what Microsoft was/is.

~~~
TeMPOraL
If you believe that all this advertising spending and social media marketing
activity actually adds more to companies on Facebook than it does to Facebook
itself, then you sort of could call Facebook a platform per this definition.
An advertising platform.

------
blatherard
> The move will significantly reduce the risk of building on the Facebook
> platform.

What's to stop them from reversing the policy change? Once bitten, twice shy.

~~~
cma
They put an enforceable promise in there that they wouldn't do that. Wait no,
they could have but didn't.

~~~
Spivak
Why would a company ever impose binding restrictions on itself?

~~~
kennxfl
It's a PR move. Probably proposed by one of many third party agencies that
Sandberg 'wasn't aware of but takes full responsibility for'.

~~~
aylmao
I think it's more likely this is to avoid problems with the slew of dating
apps that depend on Facebook now that they're starting to roll out their
dating feature.

------
sehugg
Good idea, they'll get even more data on emerging competitors than they used
to get from their traffic-sniffing VPN app before Apple pulled it from the App
Store a few months ago: [https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/12/facebook-starts-
pushing-it...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/12/facebook-starts-pushing-its-
data-tracking-onavo-vpn-within-its-main-mobile-app/)

~~~
elliekelly
a Facebook VPN? what an oxymoron. how is this not a bigger story/discussion?

~~~
RhodesianHunter
It was pretty big news at the time, but this being the year of outrageous news
and all...

------
discordance
Great, if anyone has any spare cycles - please rip out Events from Facebook
into another app so I don't have to open Facebook anymore.

~~~
jrickert
They did, check out the Local app they released.

~~~
dmitriid
You still can't create events via third-party apps.

------
SwellJoe
They _had_ a platform. Then they killed it by killing anybody who did
something better than them on the platform. Now they have a burned out husk of
a platform. Who wants to live and work in that? The kids don't even like
facebook, anymore (perhaps partly because it's been stagnant due to lack of
fresh outside ideas, I dunno...it's not really my area, and I've always been
ambivalent about facebook even when it was still cool).

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
"I hated Facebook before it was uncool" is certainly a new twist on an old
trope.

~~~
SwellJoe
"Ambivalent" is the word I used. I'm older than the original facebook
demographic. I was well into adulthood when facebook took off. It took me a
few years to even open an account, and then only because friends, mostly
younger friends, were using it to organize stuff that I wanted to be involved
in. I didn't hate it, I just didn't really see the point in it. I figured it
was yet another social network that I could ignore forever, because it would
fail in a few years to be replaced by the next social network.

------
gojomo
Alas, they can still add and remove such a policy, or tuned variants thereof,
at their own discretion at any time. And have done so in the past. And would
be keenly motivated to do so in the future.

So them not-having-the-policy on a particular day N isn't really much comfort
for those who'd like to build functionality for day N+1, when Facebook may
have rewritten the rules to its own advantage again.

Will they contractually commit to a policy for a specified period of time?

------
burtonator
This is great timing.

My new startup, EvilCorp is just about to launch a new social platform where
we give your private data directly to Russians trying to subvert our
Democracy.

Now we can just launch directly on Facebook since they no longer ban us from
copying this core feature.

~~~
kennxfl
Even if you were targeted with racist misinformation, isn't it your
responsibility not to be easily convinced?

~~~
whack
I would say it's our responsibility to have an electoral system that can't be
so easily fooled

[https://outlookzen.com/2018/11/18/a-democracy-that-cannot-
be...](https://outlookzen.com/2018/11/18/a-democracy-that-cannot-be-hacked/)

------
propman
So Facebook copies every major app and service and then destroys its lifeline
immediately killing the work of creators who innovated. Immediately after that
Facebook copies the exact same service resulting in little risk, ingenuity and
an almost certainty of success.

Sad truth is many great developers will trust them again because there’s a
huge opportunity here but they’ll be smarter this time around. Don’t put all
the eggs in the same basket and plan ahead a solid pivot when (not if)
Facebook renegs.

~~~
vezycash
>they’ll be smarter this time around.

Nah. There's a fool born every second. Just 5% of developers actually follow
tech news. The rest have allowed their jobs to take over their lives.

If people bothered to pay attention to the past, the world would be a much
better place. Google, Apple, FB... wouldn't be this dominant because we would
have learned from the recent past.

~~~
JonathanMerklin
Source on that 5% figure? Can't find it with a couple of quick searches.

~~~
vezycash
Made an estimate from my personal experience. Simply saying, "only a fraction
of developers..." would be a weaker statement.

~~~
lotsofpulp
I consider more accurate statements to be stronger statements.

------
slackoverflower
Of course Facebook would made this change now. They have the freedom to do
this now. They have effectively won social at this point. They control 3 of
the biggest mobile social apps in the world: Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook
itself. No startup really poses a realistic threat to them anymore. This
policy change is just FB saving face in the eyes of regulators (and developers
like here on HN).

~~~
hayksaakian
I think you're getting ahead of yourself. TikTok stands a real chance to
dethrone them over the next X years.

~~~
sincerely
I thought TikTok was sort of like, Vine mixed with Musical.ly - is it a robust
enough offering to do messaging/events/groups/marketplace, etc?

~~~
lozaning
I dont see my HAM radio group making the transition from FB to TikTok.

------
elcomet
This is awesome. Maybe then we can finally have a separate group / events app
without getting the crappy Facebook feed and notifications. I think most
people use facebook either for messenger, or for the group and event features.

~~~
matthuggins
Funny, I use Facebook for the exact inverse of this. I actively avoid
messenger, group, and event features. I use it to keep in touch with family
and share family photos.

~~~
elcomet
Don't you share your family photos in a group? Then you and I have the same
use (except for the events).

Or do you share your family photos with all your friends?

------
laythea
I think this is facebook getting scared of regulation and so thinking that if
facebook's "features" get adopted more so, then they can be pinpointed by
authorities less. My thoughts only.

~~~
cc439
This announcement comes just days after FB hired a crack team of anti-trust
defense lawyers, of course it's a move to defend against potential
regulation/litigation. I'm not saying their defense team caused this change
either, just that there this fits a pattern that shows FB's leadership is very
concerned about potential government action against them.

------
captainmuon
I'd have to read the actual policy, but i think this would enable two cool
things:

\- Third party Facebook and messenger apps

\- Bridges between Facebook and other social networks (where you have a FB
proxy account that you don't touch manually)

Thinking of it, it seems unlikely that this is actually going to be allowed.
More likely, they are talking about if Facebook makes e.g. their own Candy
Crush, you are still allowed to keep the original on FB.

~~~
throwmeback
I'd love a 3rd party Messenger client. I absolutely despise their app. It
isn't even an IM client anymore - there are tons of irrelevant features that
make it hard to use, e.g. the Games tab, the tab with bots and the Days.

And for the love of whatever, please let me use my phone's camera app.

Before you try to prove me wrong - are you sure you didn't just get used to
it? Because I don't like to get used to stuff I don't like.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I switched to Facebook's own Messenger Lite app a while back and it's a huge
improvement. I think it's aimed at third world users but it does everything I
need it to do.

------
Justin_K
Anybody that builds an app on a "platform" that can be taken away overnight is
a fool. Facebook has made it clear that if they want to change a policy, they
could care less about your "business".

~~~
runeb
Off topic, but as a non-english native speaker the phrase "could care less"
always bothers me as I read it literally to mean someone does indeed care,
since they can care less. Is this one of those cases where the meaning changes
through actual use like "literally" now meaning not necessarily "to be taken
literally"?

~~~
enlyth
No, people just say it incorrectly. It should be 'couldn't care less'.

~~~
swift532
But if enough people say it incorrectly long enough, it becomes correct, no?

Not that I disagree that it hasn't happened yet. I too find it quite annoying
when people say they "could care less".

~~~
sreyaNotfilc
Exactly!

It really is suppose to be "couldn't care less". Meaning, that they are at
level 0/100 of the caring meter.

But as languages go, we tend to move towards an easier way to say the same
thing.

"could care less" sounds similar, means the same, and that most people
associates it with the former phrase.

------
ppeetteerr
"It's a trap!"

Facebook is a software company and any successful software built on top of it
will be copied and integrated into the core platform. They are just looking
for their next "inspiration"

------
CGamesPlay
So Facebook realizes that it’s namesake website isn’t producing as much value
as it used to, and that by enabling users to customize their experience they
retain control of the data. But how can they monetize the third party apps?
Acquisitions? Betting most users will continue using the core website?

~~~
freyir
> Betting most users will continue using the core website?

This is my guess. A desperate attempt to bring back its core users.

------
onetimemanytime
Facebook: The Last Chapter

They're becoming Yahoo...they need insane qtr to qtr growth or else its stock
gets smashed, and takes everything else with it. Who wants to work for a has-
been?

Google escaped it by adding ads virtually on 100% of the page and added ads
one by one on mobile pages and didn't do them much harm. How many ads are now
on mobile, 4 or 5? Google still can monetize Maps and Translate and people are
doing more of their stuff online.

I guess FB can add more ads but "everyone" has or had FB so adding new users
is a challenge. Not sure how Whatsapp can be monetized, in a way that is worth
trying.

------
Mtinie
Cue the beginning of the end. This is a strategic, not tactical decision, and
one I wasn’t expecting Facebook to make anytime soon...unless they are in
worse shape than even the naysayers suggest.

------
akabaka777
That's it. I'm leaving anything related to facebook. I mean a company should
have minimum level of ethics. This is a absolute trash of a company.

~~~
cortesoft
So you didn't leave when they HAD the policy banning competitors, but decide
to leave when the remove the ban?

~~~
unclebucknasty
Sounds rational to me. To GP's point, at least the former policy was somewhat
honest. By announcing this "reversal" it's like a lie that involves time
travel. That is, they just lied again, and will prove it so at some future
point.

------
EnderMB
Given all the awesome tech to come out of Facebook, I often wonder why their
platform can be so hard to build against.

I want to like this move, but a platform is only as good as its API, and for
years their API offers have been poor. The Cambridge Analytica scandal didn't
exactly help in this regard.

This feels like a mixed message. One of wanting to be open, but also one of
knowing that they can't allow access to personal data because they cannot (or
will not) police its use. The cynic in me (and everyone else it seems)
believes this is a regulation thing, and nothing to do with letting people
build on their platform.

------
booleandilemma
What next? FBML again?

~~~
DonHopkins
Heavens no: FBSON FTW!

------
mayurbhattit
Just check my article regarding Facebook Live
[https://thinkery.me/mayurbhattseo/5b7fddd81cb602f862000c50](https://thinkery.me/mayurbhattseo/5b7fddd81cb602f862000c50)

------
chasing
Facebook is acting scared.

------
dmitriid
Wait. There are apps on the Facebook platform? Haven't they crippled any and
all capabilities of the platform by ensuring that you can't build anything
useful on it?

------
Karupan
Deleted my Facebook account long back, so I’m curious: are FB apps still a big
thing? Is the quality any better because of stricter rules or is it pretty
much the same?

------
electic
The amount of companies that have been burned from Facebook is staggering. And
it not just fasgarewq

------
rblion
too little, too late.

the exodus has already begun

------
thefounder
Yeah...ends the policy just to restart it later!

------
npunt
"We've run out of ideas for how to improve Facebook. Maybe we should let
developers come up with some ideas again so we can copy them."

~~~
raspo
Exactly what I thought. "... and then, once we are satisfied for a couple more
years, we can put the same policy back into place"

~~~
wlesieutre
I doubt they need to, copying successful features is enough since their own
version is the default and they can jam it in users faces in ways that third
parties can't.

And just like their acquisitions based on Onvao data, they'll have a whole lot
of information on what ideas are worth stealing.

------
fbn79
Facebook API are becomed more irrilevant year after year. This change want
change the situation.

------
basicplus2
Could lead to turtles all the in..

infinite recursion to the centre...

