Just wondering...why is it wrong for a private company to take control of their product and user experience? It's their service, why can't they set certain protocols on how to use it?
I agree. The problem lies with how people are defining success. If you choose to define success as a "wild level of user and developer adoption thanks to the service being free, fun and bankrolled by investors with hundreds of millions of dollars", then yes, twitter is successful and owes a lot of this to the open api and ecosystem that grew up around it.
The problem is, this isn't success. Everyone (users, app developers and twitter itself) has been enjoying a free ride for the last x years, courtesy of investment money. It's been one big successful party... except for the fact it's been anything but for the investors. And when it comes to judging a company's success, the latter is the only kind that matters.
Taken in that light, it's hard to feel sorry for those who were caught out when the music stopped and the party was over. The investors are free to take the company in whatever direction they like in pursuit of real success (i.e. turning a profit) and if that means strangling the third party eco system, then so be it. Whether or not that's a good idea (I'm not sure it is) is irrelevant. It's their call to make.
Twitter proliferated on openness - they owe a large part of their success to it.
Part of me feels they have broken a promise with early users - now that they have their critical mass and revenue pressure they can turn their back on 'open'.
The free marketer in me would hope that a new open alternative would win over in the long term, but it doesn't look likely.
Regardless of whether it's wrong, I think it's fair to say that Twitter would not have been as successful without the help of an open protocol and third party clients. So it was a bit unfair to all the people who wrote clients and helped Twitter gain popularity to start closing down the protocol.
Take control of their product and user experience can equally be read destroy other companies and force customers to use their sub-standard interface. There is harm in it. It doesn't seem hugely unreasonable for people to object. Whether Twitter's actions are worthy of legal interference I don't know. And heck, maybe it wasn't even practical for them to keep supporting the protocol. It is on first blush, however, a bit of a dick move.
Of course, in practice, they can do it - but they're screwing over a lot of people in the process and it's unclear why they should be allowed to other than that they own it. And ownership doesn't make sense to me as a strong-form legal principle when you're talking about things that affect many people. To quote Lord Denning:
'None of you nowadays will remember the trouble we had - when I was called to the Bar - with exemption clauses. They were printed in small print on the back of tickets and order forms and invoices. They were contained in catalogues or timetables. They were held to be binding on any person who took them without objection. No one ever did object. He never read them or knew what was in them. No matter how unreasonable they were, he was bound. All this was done in the name of "freedom of contract." But the freedom was all on the side of the big concern which had the use of the printing press. No freedom for the little man who took the ticket or order form or invoice. The big concern said, "Take it or leave it." The little man had no option but to take it. The big concern could and did exempt itself from liability in its own interest without regard to the little man. It got away with it time after time. When the courts said to the big concern, "You must put it in clear words," the big concern had no hesitation in doing so. It knew well that the little man would never read the exemption clauses or understand them.'
That's kind of why we have laws concerning bargaining power and things like undue influence, and why contracts are - at least in principle - meant to be more or less equally beneficial. I believe you can trace it back to The Wealth of Nations, and probably before - it's not as if Denning had the idea originally. But in terms of illustration of the conclusion of letting people who own a service dictate how it will be used absolutely. The peak of freedom of contract as a guiding legal principle has - at least in all hope - passed.
Silly contracts still get written, mind, that's just taken for granted. I have a contract with my phone provider for a two year plan, for instance, but if it ever came to court I very much doubt that would be upheld - it's far more likely that the court would say that while companies can be reasonably expected to make plans two years in the future I, as an individual (and consequently being far less powerful) can't.
"It's their service, why can't they set certain protocols on how to use it?
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It is, but startup owners should realize that if you base your entire business on something like Twitter, one change could destroy your business overnight.
