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How Not to Be a Platform: Twitter's Firehose Mistake

3scale.net
7 pointsnjyx2 comments
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Just yesterday I read in the Vancouver, Washington paper "The Columbian" of a lawsuit that a fruit distributor just filed against a railroad company. The fruit vendor had been shipping apples and pears to the midwest; this turned out to be hugely popular with the result that it was offered a $30M acquisition.

However the railroad is no longer willing to ship the apples as it is reallocating its resources to transport crude oil instead.

I don't doubt that in the short term the oil is more profitable to the oil company, but I expect that even without the lawsuit, they will lose in the end. Those whose livelihoods depend on shipping their product will look for other means of transport.

njyxOP

Yes - that's a great example, if you're not inviting people to try things on your platform you loose in the long run. It might be a genuine resource issue - but seems unlikely that there's no arrangement that would work!

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