One of the most important lessons I've learned during the growing-up phase of my being an entrepreneur -- and one of the first things I'm doing with my next startup -- is putting together a list of "doomsday scenarios" right off the bat.
What are the _single_ actions / events / scenarios that could kill your business overnight?
I emphasize single because every business is going to have the potential for a series of unforeseen events kill them (i.e. Microsoft would probably not have seen 'Apple releases a phone' as a business/Balmer-killer), but every business should be keenly aware of the single-points-of-failure (SPoF).
It seems obvious, but so many folks either willfully ignore or choose to pretend that SPoF don't exist or rationalize the scenario away.
Examples:
* You run on AWS in a single availability zone, and that availability zone goes down for a week ("The cloud is super reliable. Amazon won't go down.")
* Your CTO is the only person on the company who knows the product, and he quits overnight / gets injured / becomes incapacitated. ("He's my partner. He'd never abandon the business. We're in this together.")
* You rely solely on Facebook / Twitter / Apple App Store and are at the mercy of their changes in policy ("Oh Facebook would never just shut us down.")
* You're built solely on the Foursquare Places API. ("Foursquare won't just kill all the companies that rely on their API...right?")
Etc. etc. etc.
Now, this isn't saying that you should be paralyzed by the potential for SPoFs to hurt your business -- it may make sense to proceed even with them around (i.e. lots of people have made a lot of money building FB apps).
But you MUST be aware of what they are, and you MUST have a plan in place to handle the continuation of the business if one of them comes true.
Agreed. But also note - this isn't a point of failure. It's an annoyance, and it's Facebook being arbitrary and inconsistent. But it doesn't affect my ability to deliver the product. It just makes it a little harder, because the most logical communication medium between myself and my users has been taken away.
Of all the companies out there, Facebook is the least arbitrary and inconsistent I know! Just imagine they're a perfectly rational, self-interested actor who plays realpolitik all the time and plan accordingly.
For example, how does FB benefit from your product? Does it hamper them in any way? Even the name (Social "Fixer") does not align with FB's interests.
The rational thing to do would be to shut you down. If you had leverage or tied into a broader strategy they might not. But you don't, so they did.
Agreed. Unfortunately, this is a personal side project. If it were my business, I would certainly approach it differently.
The only benefit they get is that lots of people continue using Facebook who otherwise may have given up on it. Oh, and they sometimes seem to add features that I come up with first.
But in general, yes - I am someone they would like to just make go away.
Which is fine - they have a right to do that. But everyone should be aware of this, because at some point when Facebook decides they don't like your politics, or hobby, or sexual choices, they'll arbitrarily shut you down, too. So, don't give them any more than you can afford to lose. But I see many companies investing a ton of time and money into their Facebook strategy. My point is to beware, because it may not be a good choice.
The main aspect of your product they didn't like us that you were inserting yourself between Facebook and their users. Any platform provider would try to stop that because that relationship is the foundation for every platform's value.
The only possible chance you have around this is growing so fast and becoming so essential that the platform provider can't punish you without punishing themselves. See, e.g., Facebook and Zynga.
the most logical communication medium between myself and my users has been taken away.
Were you paying Facebook to provide your business [edit: I see from another post of yours that it's actually a side project--so this might not be strictly applicable to you, but I still think it's worth bringing up] with a communication medium between you and your users? I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the answer is no.
And that brings up what I see as the real issue here; actually two of them:
(1) Business owners still seem to see Facebook as a free platform that they can build on as they please, without realizing that you get what you pay for. If you're not paying Facebook, you're not their customer and your business has no leverage over them, particularly if your business is built on something they're known to dislike.
(2) Why doesn't Facebook allow businesses to pay for some kind of premium business account that lets them communicate with their users, or even alter the user interface their users see? That would solve both problems--your problem of needing a communication platform that everybody knows about, and FB's problem of not getting any benefit from third parties piggybacking off their popularity.
I agree with this, and (1) is kind of the warning I was trying to spread to other business owners, for whom this is NOT just a side project. I can get around this. Other people and businesses seem to be going "all in" on Facebook, without realizing what a huge risk they are taking.
I understood and understand the risk. That's part of the game I'm playing with them, but I also have the right to call them out when I don't like it, and to bring attention to this problem that others might have at some point.
It comes down to this: if you are serious about your business, build redundancy throughout ALL layers, not just technology but also personnel. You gave the example of CTO, but I would go one step further: there should always be someone who can act as interim CEO if something happens to you.
It is also against Facebook TOS to create or use browser extensions to alter the Facebook experience. This has been the rule for many years. The fact that this page and extension did not get banned sooner is the real story.
Very well, maybe they're trying to kill Social Fixer because of their TOS. Right now, it seems like this will be the biggest exposure SF gets in its several years of existence, so not the best possible move...
Advertisers didn't kill adblock, and they won't kill this. How much revenue and resources they lose before they accept this fact and adapt, is up to them.
Sadly, I think they do. That is, Facebook's terms include browsing Facebook with an accepted browser. That's nuts but it's also natural.
Facebook basically would like to pretend the browser is something like a "trusted client" rather than an inherent unknown.
It's a thing that you do pretending it's for security but, of course, it doesn't work for security but does work reasonably well for the masses aiming to view their own data in the way they like it.
Facebook stands by banning Robert Scoble for downloading the emails of his friend from his account using a script. The difference between a "browser" and "script" is completely arbitrary in the world of bits and bytes but banning "upsupported browsers"
Apparently it does make it enforceable as they removed his page. Unfortunately when you're on someones platform you're at their mercy, they can delete your page for some minor infraction and you've got very little recourse.
How would it be illegal to remove pages from their own platform that alter Facebook's appearance? As far as enforceability, that seems demonstrably false based on this post.
>They can write that in their terms & conditions all they like, but it doesn't make it legal or enforceable
That was In response to "It is against Facebook tos to create or use extensions that alter the experience".
When you say "that doesn't make it legal", does that not imply you think something is illegal....? Regardless, I see from your comment that you weren't talking about the page removal, but rather going on a tangent about the legality / enforceability of the ban on creating and using extensions that alter Facebook (as opposed to banning pages n Facebook that promote these extensions). We're on total agreement on that.
Of course they can kick any Facebook user/group off for any reason, but I suspect they would have a hard time taking any sort of legal action against a plugin (or tinted glasses) that merely changes the way a user's browser interprets the resources loaded from Facebook.
Anyway, I think it's silly for Facebook to be going after tools that make users like Facebook more, as long as they don't somehow degrade the experience for others (spamming, etc)
Yes. What they said. Social Fixer is not bound by any API TOS, because I do not use their API or any official mechanism they offer. I am not a Facebook Developer, and this isn't a Facebook App. This is, of course, intentional, because I don't want to be bound by the Developer TOS.
If you're referring to point 3.11, then I don't agree. This is not the intent of this provision. This is clearly targeted at malware or other software that prevents the proper working of Facebook against the user's wishes.
Otherwise, it would be a violation of their TOS to disable Javascript, change your font, or use custom CSS in your browser.
Not true. I've created a browser extension that inserted a menu item to Facebook's menu for each facebook story. I didn't have to be signed in as a facebook developer to do that.
My apologies, I did not know it was completely separate. I had assumed it wasn't separate because that is what is listed as the reason for removing it.
This is quite unfair to you IMO...downright shameful of facebook to do this.
I've always wondered how effective Facebook is at enforcing its policies. I've seen plenty of pages that I know are gaming likes, and while I report them nothing ever seems to be done.
Are Facebook really serious about stopping abuses of their system?
This has been Facebook's MO for almost 5 years now. What Social Fixer was doing in particular is among a class of applications that Facebook has always deleted or banned as soon as they noticed them. I've had applications with 5-10MM MAU deleted without warning and know dozens of folks with similar stories.
That's life developing for Facebook. Don't be under any illusions if you decide to play in their sandbox.
sigh, all these "hackers" confused about the difference between a facebook app and a browser extension, confused about the difference between the app and the facebook page about the app ...
These comments are depressing as hell.
On topic: I'd just be happy you lasted this long with a facebook page for an extension that does this kind of thing. This gets you an extra bump in publicity and now you don't have the threat of this hanging over your head anymore. Is there anything that your users want that would really piss Facebook off that you can do now but were wary of doing before because of not wanting to push them too far? Aggressive ad filtering?
"my Page had 338,050 Likes, my Support Group had 13,360 members, and my Interest List had 1.47 Million followers. But all of that work was wiped out in an instant when Facebook decided to shut it down without notice."
"Not only did they remove the page, but they also blocked my personal account from posting anything for 12 hours (I can’t even Like anything). They also did the same for anyone who was an Administrator or Moderator of the Page – including my wife’s personal account! Members of the support team, who generously volunteer their time to help users, have been shut out as well. They did one big sweep, I guess."
I came here to post this story, it is unfortunate that this news is not getting more visibility. If possible, check "tell facebook what you think" and try to help Matt since he has worked very hard on this app
The TOS is not above criticism or complaint, and I for one am tired of people being shouted down because they dared take issue with draconian policies.
I tend to have a lot of problems with the way Facebook operates (mostly involving how they treat their users), but they seem pretty reasonable in this case. How is it draconian to not allow a Page on your platform that (among other things) blocks your source of revenue? (social fixer allows blocking Facebook ads)
So does Adblock Plus, so does Noscript, so do the content filtering features of major browsers, yet those all have major pages. Blocking the people is just plain dickery on Facebook's part.
Your argument for why something is draconian is that they haven't yet cracked down 100%? Surely you see how ass-backwards that is. I get the idea that inconsistent enforcement sucks (in this case it's likely because the adblock blowback would be higher), but draconian isn't just a synonym for bad, it has its own definition and it does not fit incomplete enforcement.
Not at all. FBpurity is still functioning. I have to download it from a 3rd party site. You can't expect Facebook to allow products which deliberately violate their TOS to be hosted/promoted/advertised on Facebook.
>You can't expect Facebook to allow products which deliberately violate their TOS to be hosted/promoted/advertised on Facebook.
I certainly can (and do) expect humanity and rational thought to take priority over cold application of The Rules Über Alles - and any instances of the latter deserve to be called out for the silliness that they are.
Further, it's not like Facebook didn't know about this until now. Social Fixer used to be called Better Facebook until Facebook tapped them on the shoulder and asked them to change the name last year.
It has to do with the fact that they have no reason to "play nice for the betterment of humanity" if you don't follow their rules, and every reason to be well within their rights to boot you from their site for what ever reason they choose.
But please keep in mind what this is. This is not a startup company or a business who was shot down, this was a hobby project by one guy[1]. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse.. better I suppose since nobody's livelihood was wrecked over it.
SF is not a threat to Facebook in any way - this is just plain old dickery hiding behind the rule book as an excuse.
You open to the public, you open yourself up to public criticism. The way the business is run is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is, this sucks, and complaining (loudly) is the way to get it fixed.
> You open to the public, you open yourself up to public criticism.
Yes, but not public control or public voting on policies.
> The fact of the matter is, this sucks, and complaining (loudly) is the way to get it fixed.
You think businesses deserve to be controlled by the loudest voice among its detractors? If that were true, Tesla would be out of business -- it has many quiet fans, and a few loud detractors.
This is why I'm so scared / hesitant to build something that depends entirely or mostly on a third party company for its success or even ability to exist. Businesses that depend on Facebook or Twitter or Apple's App Store or even Meetup are scary. I have businesses that depend on one or more of these. And I'm scared. I'm doing my best to extricate myself from this dependency and build substantial visibility elsewhere where I can.
Well, whether you do or not, if it's the sole platform you build on, you're at their mercy.
Violating the TOS means you should expect to get burned (and you've done it to yourself). Either they utterly failed at any kind of due diligence while designing this product or they're lying about not understanding Facebook's actions; neither really engenders sympathy.
I'm not a fan of FB, but this clearly is not some arbitrary evilness on their end.
You are bound by their whims, however. I feel for you-- it's unfortunate to have something you put your heart and soul into shut down without notice.
This is why I would hesitate before developing a facebook or iOS app. Being subject to the whims of some tech bureaucrat's interpretation is a little too discomforting.
Agree 100%. People have asked for a mobile version of this app, and one of the big reasons I won't do it (or build any mobile app) is because I refuse to invest a lot of time and effort into something that can only be distributed through a 3rd-party channel, with their blessing. I will not take the risk that Apple will not suddenly decide they don't like my app tomorrow. No way.
Bummer, during election season Social Fixer made facebook usable by blocking any comment with the strings 'republican/democratic/romney/obama.' I am going to miss having the ability to filter crap from my news feed.
"My software is a free browser extension that fixes and enhances the Facebook user interface"
I can certainly see why Facebook might not want someone else controlling their user experience. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch that they would kill this.
Facebook trying to align "Community Standards" with their business protectionism and perhaps even be trying to disguise it as a positive thing they're trying to enforce - it's a bit sickening.
What are the _single_ actions / events / scenarios that could kill your business overnight?
I emphasize single because every business is going to have the potential for a series of unforeseen events kill them (i.e. Microsoft would probably not have seen 'Apple releases a phone' as a business/Balmer-killer), but every business should be keenly aware of the single-points-of-failure (SPoF).
It seems obvious, but so many folks either willfully ignore or choose to pretend that SPoF don't exist or rationalize the scenario away.
Examples:
* You run on AWS in a single availability zone, and that availability zone goes down for a week ("The cloud is super reliable. Amazon won't go down.")
* Your CTO is the only person on the company who knows the product, and he quits overnight / gets injured / becomes incapacitated. ("He's my partner. He'd never abandon the business. We're in this together.")
* You rely solely on Facebook / Twitter / Apple App Store and are at the mercy of their changes in policy ("Oh Facebook would never just shut us down.")
* You're built solely on the Foursquare Places API. ("Foursquare won't just kill all the companies that rely on their API...right?")
Etc. etc. etc.
Now, this isn't saying that you should be paralyzed by the potential for SPoFs to hurt your business -- it may make sense to proceed even with them around (i.e. lots of people have made a lot of money building FB apps).
But you MUST be aware of what they are, and you MUST have a plan in place to handle the continuation of the business if one of them comes true.