You should be leery of building a business that piggybacks on any service, Google-owned or otherwise. The first question you should ask yourself if you build something on XYZ is, "What will we do if XYZ is no longer an option?" If you don't have an answer, find a new idea.
Playing devil's advocate, I would counter that many companies have successfully built themselves around 3rd party API's from Facebook, Twitter, Google etc...
One option would be to pay for better ToS (ex: an 'enterprise' version of the API - though Youtube does not seem to have such option).
None of those companies are mature, by definition (since none of those platforms have been around for long). Some of them have significant revenue, but would I buy stock in one (e.g., Zynga)? I don't think so. I consider the Facebook Platform a toy.
Sure, everyone should think about that, but there is a traditional way to mitigate some of the risks. It's called a contract. Very few services of any kind would exist if everyone just walked away.
My conclusion from all of this is that the web is not as different from earlier "platforms" as some make it appear. If I want to build on someone's service, I make a contract that sets out the rights and obligations of either side.
I'm not a lawyer so I wonder how ToS are related to contracts. Does google have the right to change the ToS unilaterally without notification or agreement?
Comments
You should be leery of building a business that piggybacks on any service, Google-owned or otherwise. The first question you should ask yourself if you build something on XYZ is, "What will we do if XYZ is no longer an option?" If you don't have an answer, find a new idea.
Playing devil's advocate, I would counter that many companies have successfully built themselves around 3rd party API's from Facebook, Twitter, Google etc...
One option would be to pay for better ToS (ex: an 'enterprise' version of the API - though Youtube does not seem to have such option).
None of those companies are mature, by definition (since none of those platforms have been around for long). Some of them have significant revenue, but would I buy stock in one (e.g., Zynga)? I don't think so. I consider the Facebook Platform a toy.
Sure, everyone should think about that, but there is a traditional way to mitigate some of the risks. It's called a contract. Very few services of any kind would exist if everyone just walked away.
My conclusion from all of this is that the web is not as different from earlier "platforms" as some make it appear. If I want to build on someone's service, I make a contract that sets out the rights and obligations of either side.
I'm not a lawyer so I wonder how ToS are related to contracts. Does google have the right to change the ToS unilaterally without notification or agreement?