{"id":50,"date":"2007-09-27T19:25:58","date_gmt":"2007-09-27T18:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tmachine1.dh.bytemark.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/09\/27\/internet-as-platform-marc-andreessen-is-wrong\/"},"modified":"2007-09-27T19:26:45","modified_gmt":"2007-09-27T18:26:45","slug":"internet-as-platform-marc-andreessen-is-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/2007\/09\/27\/internet-as-platform-marc-andreessen-is-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Internet as Platform – Marc Andreessen is wrong?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Often wrong, never in doubt” is the tagline on Marc Andreessen’s blog. With a recent post of his, on the “three kinds of platforms you meet on the internet”, I think the first part of that tagline is ringing true :P – Marc is talking nonsense with his claims that “[a Level 3 platform is] much better for the developer [than a Level 2 one]”<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s great that he’s trying to “disentangle and examine the topic of Internet Platform”, but … seriously, there are good analyses and bad analyses, and this one rings jarringly false to me.<\/p>\n

To save you reading the whole thing initially, here’s Andrew Chen’s summary<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The fastest summary:<\/p>\n

* A Level 1 platform’s apps run elsewhere, and call into the platform via a web services API to draw on data and services — this is how Flickr does it.<\/p>\n

* A Level 2 platform’s apps run elsewhere, but inject functionality into the platform via a plug-in API — this is how Facebook does it. Most likely, a Level 2 platform’s apps also call into the platform via a web services API to draw on data and services.<\/p>\n

* A Level 3 platform’s apps run inside the platform itself — the platform provides the “runtime environment” within which the app’s code runs.<\/p>\n

And which companies are working on Level 3 platforms, other than Marc’s Ning?<\/p>\n

* Salesforce.com<\/p>\n

* SecondLife<\/p>\n

* Amazon (through AWS)<\/p>\n

* Akamai<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Which is fine, but I need to add Marc’s statement that <\/p>\n

I call these Internet platform models “levels”, because as you go from Level 1 to Level 2 to Level 3, as I will explain, each kind of platform is harder to build, but much better for the developer. Further, as I will also explain, each level typically supersets the levels below.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Are they monotonically harder to build?\n
      \n
    • Yes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
    • Do they typically superset the levels below?\n
        \n
      • Yes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
      • Are they “much better for the developer”?\n
          \n
        • Hell no<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Marc has written a very programmer-centric post here. He’s identified that, technically speaking, the different classes of platform are “bigger” than each other and obey a transitive, non-commutative, superset relationship. Natural consequences of that are the first two items I hilight in his claims above.<\/p>\n

          But he’s then made the mistake of conflating this with *entirely unsubstantiated* business concepts of “better”. As the developer of one of these “level 3” platforms he contends are “best”, it’s no wonder that he wants to believe that it is a *logical* conclusion that the business advantage comes forth just as the technical conclusions are logically sound. But wanting to believing a thing doesn’t make it true. And whilst I genuinely believe he could have provided a decent argument that makes it true *for his business*, I think it’s not only an illogical claim, but actually false, in the general case.<\/p>\n

          Specifically, I would like to know how a level 3 is “better for the developer” than a level 2?<\/p>\n

          And I’m sorry, but I’m going to stop calling them “levels”; they are only levels in a programming sense, not in a business sense, and to name them that way implies something is globally true that only applies to one aspect of them.<\/p>\n

          Going from class 2 to class 3, you:<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. have to do more work<\/li>\n
          2. pay more in ongoing costs<\/li>\n
          3. provide no appreciable benefit to any user who is also a competent developer<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            To give an example of a valid way of making the “3 beats 2” argument work is that you could argue that if your target-market is people who can’t write code at all then the third point above is irrelevant, and that actually you ARE adding value.<\/p>\n

            But for all the other users – and, let’s be fair here, Marc chooses *Facebook* as one of his examples of class TWO, not three; Facebook, where pretty much any idiot can (and does) write a facebook app within a matter of days or hours – point three above means you aren’t adding any value at all by moving to class 3.<\/p>\n

            Hosting is incredibly cheap these days, and developing basic functionality is incredibly easy – as mentioned, look at the proliferation of non-programmers and what they’ve done on FB. Reducing the dev cost and hosting cost over and above a level 2 platform seems to have very little actual point to it.<\/p>\n

            And, worst of all, with a level 3 platform, you make it into an “all-or-nothing” proposal, completely about-face from what has driven the proliferation of Web 2.0. You create a walled-garden of proprietaryness, where every user is dependent upon your ongoing existence. Facebook expressly does not do this.<\/p>\n

            Even when people use your service because they have no choice but to limit themselves to your walled-garden, you will scare away vast swathes of the best users because they will be rightly suspicious that yours is a proprietary platform that they cannot exist without.<\/p>\n

            I would rather contend that class 2 apps are the best of all. Why? Because:<\/p>\n

            If I develop an FB app, and FB disappears tomorrow, I can still run my app all over the web with almost literally no changes to code.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

            On the other hand (and I know many examples of where this has prevented people from using SL, even though LL have taken many steps to blur this and insulate people from the problem, including open-sourcing pretty much everything)<\/p>\n

            If I develop something in SL, and Linden implodes tomorrow … I lose my entire ability to conduct business.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

            I think it’s telling that even in Marc’s post it’s clear he was struggling to find examples of class 3 platforms. I think it’s disingenuous to even put SL in that category, since it is (as noted) moving so strongly and rapidly towards being something different – they’re even talking about allowing anyone to run the servers themselves. If they’re a poster-child for level 3 being “much better for the developer”, then why are they running full-tilt for becoming something that would only fit in his level 2?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            “Often wrong, never in doubt” is the tagline on Marc Andreessen’s blog. With a recent post of his, on the “three kinds of platforms you meet on the internet”, I think the first part of that tagline is ringing true :P – Marc is talking nonsense with his claims that “[a Level 3 platform is] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}