On Killing your Devs

Netflix announced (Netflix blog) yesterday that it would no longer support it's public APIs (Application Programming Interface-basically a way for third party apps to communicate with a service). New apps that would take advantage of those APIs (things like queue managers) will not be allowed. Apps that already use the public APIs will continue to work, but no new developer keys will be issued. Theverge.com has a good explanation of what is happening and what the immediate effects will be here (March 8th column by Dieter Bohn).

 

This is reminiscent of Twitter's changes to their own APIs. Twitter announced, in a developer blog post several months ago , that they would be making changes to their APIs. These changes altered the way third party applications could access information from Twitter, limited the number of users the applications could have, and changed the way applications could display the information they pulled from Twitter.

 

Obviously, controlling the way third parties access your service (what Twitter did) is not the same as shutting down access completely for new third party applications (what Netflix did). It does, however, show some similarities in the attitudes of companies allowing access to their data to third party applications. As long as Twitter or Netflix believed the third party apps are helping to build the value and user base of the service, third party developers are in great shape. As soon as Twitter or Netflix feels third party apps no longer add value or are starting to build their own user base to the detriment of the service then it's time for the third parties to go.

 

This should give pause to start-ups considering building their companies on access to that data. Every Twitter client, besides the official (and rather limited) Twitter app, now has an artificial limit on how big it can grow. Unless a developer is willing to live with such an artificial ceiling on growth, they will not be interested in Twitter as a foundation for their application.

 

While Netflix has not limited the users of existing third party applications, they have stagnated development by keeping fresh ideas from disrupting the market for supplemental Netflix applications. Netflix is also not supporting the developers directly anymore by making their developer forums read-only and encouraging them to support each other on Stack Overflow (a programmer Q&A).

 

Netflix is headed for a more controlled ecosystem in which they will set up specific agreements with partners and maintain tight reign over the look and feel of every aspect of their service. Admittedly, this is bad for third party developers, but the jury’s still out on whether or not it will be bad for Netflix subscribers.