When you build your house on someone else's foundation, your house is at the mercy of the foundation's owner's plans.
Publically available APIs are great, but at times I am troubled by how many people develop entire products and applications around other's data, and then scream bloody murder when their business model goes up in smoke because the parent decided to evolve and innovate their own business.
Forget business models – I find it frustrating as a consumer to see the value proposition of a service I value being reduced.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to be unhappy about a reduction in value to me, the end consumer. Do I understand it? Perhaps – I still view it as a poor sort of competitive behavior because it's built around increasing information asymmetry and reducing consumers' ability to compare offerings – rather than making their own offerings stronger.
When you build your house on someone else's foundation, your house is at the mercy of the foundation's owner's plans.
Publically available APIs are great, but at times I am troubled by how many people develop entire products and applications around other's data, and then scream bloody murder when their business model goes up in smoke because the parent decided to evolve and innovate their own business.