I’m old enough to remember Nintendo suing GameGenie for making the test codes on their games more broadly accessible. And Apple suing indie firms that made 3rd party peripherals for their devices. Don’t forget Microsoft’s unholy war on Netscape Navigator, as they deliberately tried to sabotage the popular third party web browser from working via various Microsoft updates. Hell, I think you can find case law in the 1920s on Ford Motor Company fighting spare parts manufacturers and trying to box them out of the industry. Corporate dinosaurs fighting to keep startups from interfacing with their products is a tale as old as time.
Historically, Facebook/Google/Twitter/et al were focused on integrating with common systems, because they were the underdogs struggling against firms like Microsoft and Comcast who were trying to maintain their Walled Garden. Now they’re kings of the hill, pushing competition off their doorstep.
Its sleazy and toxic and ultimately bad for the industry as a whole. But its nothing new.
Funny how it was outrageous when Musk did it, and now it’s already common and accepted…
I’m old enough to remember Nintendo suing GameGenie for making the test codes on their games more broadly accessible. And Apple suing indie firms that made 3rd party peripherals for their devices. Don’t forget Microsoft’s unholy war on Netscape Navigator, as they deliberately tried to sabotage the popular third party web browser from working via various Microsoft updates. Hell, I think you can find case law in the 1920s on Ford Motor Company fighting spare parts manufacturers and trying to box them out of the industry. Corporate dinosaurs fighting to keep startups from interfacing with their products is a tale as old as time.
Historically, Facebook/Google/Twitter/et al were focused on integrating with common systems, because they were the underdogs struggling against firms like Microsoft and Comcast who were trying to maintain their Walled Garden. Now they’re kings of the hill, pushing competition off their doorstep.
Its sleazy and toxic and ultimately bad for the industry as a whole. But its nothing new.
I would have sworn you wrote McDonalds the first time, and I was like wtf went on there that I had no idea about, until you got to the 2nd Microsoft.