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Comment by legutierr | Hacker News Reader

But what about all of those software businesses that have built on top of the iOS API + App Store? Would you say that they are also taking a massive risk? Apple can cut off any app that it wants at any time, almost for any reason, and yet thousands of independent developers are building profitable businesses on top of their platform.

The issue is not a dependency on an API or platform. The issue is the nature and character of the company upon which you are depending. In spite of some well-publicized hiccups, Apple has made an effort to nurture its developer community.

The point of the article is not that dependency is bad (although it may very well be), but rather that LinkedIn is a bad partner, and it's not worth spending any effort to build a business on their platform.

What I'm curious about is what companies are similarly risky to build your business on.

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It's not that complicated. If you build your company on the back of another company you must abide by their TOS. If your business plan is to build the best porn app on the App Store, you would be similarly disappointed.

In general, if your business plan relies on the goodwill of another company and you provide little value to that company in return, you don't have a very good business plan.

I don't think it's enough to rely on the TOS. Sure, there are obvious examples like porn on the iPhone where the TOS will give you a clear answer. Frequently, however, the TOS are ambiguous and are interpreted inconsistently. They can also be changed at will.

Sure, you're right that developers should try to give as much benefit back to their platform provider as they derive from the platform. But the fact is that different companies perceive benefit in different ways with reasoning that is opaque. Often a decision can depend on a strategic direction for the firm that you are not privy to.

All this is why the reputation of the company matters so much. From reading the article, it looks like LinkedIn not only acted in a very inconsistent manner--giving praise before shutting them down--but they even began reverse-engineering the application. That's not the kind of behavior that breeds a healthy ecosystem regardless of whether they have all the right to act that way, and regardless of whether Pealk was careless in relying so heavily on LinkedIn.

If everyone were to take a cautious approach to the APIs and platforms that big companies offer, as has been suggested in this thread, then the tech sector would be a much less interesting place. The fact is that a lot of innovation happens because there actually are API and platform providers out there that care about their developers and won't pull shit like this.

You're complicating something that isn't that complicated. LinkedIn's TOS very clearly states in the terms that it is illegal to "Use the APIs in an Application that competes with products or services offered by us"

So when you see:

http://talent.linkedin.com/Recruiter

And your site is using the API to create a service for recruiters, it seems crystal clear to me that you are violating the LinkedIn TOS. This is not some grey area or some arbitrary changing of the rules - it is a very clear violation of LinkedIn API guidelines. I just don't see how this proves even a little bit that LinkedIn doesn't "care about their developers".

And for the bigger picture, it is amazing to me that a significant number of people expect LinkedIn to sit around while some other company attempts to undercut LinkedIn's own premium product using LinkedIn's API.

> But what about all of those software businesses that have built on top of the iOS API + App Store? Would you say that they are also taking a massive risk?

Yes. Very yes. Any iOS developer with any sense is brutally aware that we serve at the pleasure of the king, as Jeff Atwood put it. Apple nurtures its developer community because a robust app store is a selling point for Apple hardware. If Apple decides your app runs contrary to Apple's goals, it's gone, and you better have a backup plan. There've been plenty of panicked anecdotes floating around the Internet on that topic. The grandparent's analysis is sound.

(Also: thousands of independent developers are building profitable businesses on iOS, but tens of thousands aren't.)

>But what about all of those software businesses that have built on top of the iOS API + App Store? Would you say that they are also taking a massive risk?

Yes. If Apple wants to offer a product with similar functionality to yours they can make your disappear. Sharecropping is inherently risky.

But what about all of those software businesses that have built on top of the iOS API + App Store? Would you say that they are also taking a massive risk?

Yes, without question. Business doing so should at the very least diversify across platforms and technologies.

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