Entries for label: walled-gardens

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Why Google App Engine Locks You in Even More

The original title for this blog entry was "What's the difference between Google and Facebook?" Answer: Google is even worse than Facebook.

Let me explain what I mean by that and then I'll tell you why I changed it.

Google have finally entered the cloud-computing world for us mere developer mortals, a whole two years after Amazon gave us S3, EC2 and other web services. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'd think I'd be excited about this piece of news.

But I'm not and here's why.

Cloud computing, massively parrallel systems, distributed data storage and other things like that really interest me. What I want are the basic tools such that I can mold them, manipulate them and add to them to fit my needs. Basically, I want to use them however I see fit and I want to be able to do what ever I like.

But Google App Engine doesn't let you do that. It has some nice interfaces, yes, but in reality all you get are some abstractions built atop of Google's infrastructure. A lot of people are chuffed that they can now play with GFS and BigTable but in reality, how much of that do you actually see. Not much. It's just an API to you and me. An API written in Python which can only be run on Google's infrastructure.

So let me just recap that for you. To run your app on Google's infrastructure, you must use their code, their interface, their abstractions, their (single so far) language and their environment.

All in all it doesn't give you a lot of freedom. In fact, I don't see much freedom there at all. It's no argument that you'll be able to create great applications using all this infrastructure (think Gmail and Google Reader) but it's not that that I'm arguing against. You will have some slight leeway but really, why would you do it yourself when Google's way is just so much easier?

So far, I have told you that you have to do everything on their terms. Their language, their hardware etc but let me tell you something that concerns me even more than that.

It's also the fact that you'll be using their users. An API of their own design plugging in to their Accounts. You'd be able to do it yourself, sign up and manage your own users but in an environment like that, why would you?

This all reminds me of Google Gadgets - except you can write it in Python instead of JavaScript. You also get a little bit more functionality too but you're still using their infrastructure and their users.

I don't know about you but this seems like a bad idea to me. And now we're back to what this post was originally titled.

"What's the difference between Google and Facebook?"

Answer: Google is even worse than Facebook.

Let me explain.

Facebook has created a massive walled-garden of users, with high walls and plenty of pleasures inside to get those users in and not let them out. Hotel Calinfornia if you will except you can't even check-out let alone leave.

Keep the users inside, don't let them look at the rest of the web (in some cases, pretend it doesn't even exist) and just lock them in as much as you can. Facebook has turned into a horribly closed and restrictive site. That is why I quit earlier this year.

Over the years, Google have been doing the same except the walls have been growing a little more slowly. One new application at a time. The walls have been growing taller, lock-in has been getting bigger and finally we'll realise that we're inside a huge dome built on Google's servers and no-one can find the windows. Then all we can do is watch everyone suffer under the immense pressure of using all of these apps and not ever getting away from Google hosted stuff.

Just like the applications in Facebook. Yes, techically they can be hosted wherever, but the users are still locked in.

This is all made even worse by the fact that Google also made something that would stop Facebook having the monopoly on external applications for users - namely in the shape of OpenSocial.

I have written before why I don't like Open Social. Before they told us what it was about, I was really looking forward to having authorised access to user data. That wasn't what OpenSocial turned out to be - which is sad - and all we got was the ability to put applications into other sites. Again, Google App Engine is like this but worse - the only site (in regards to users) all of these new apps will run in, is Google's.

So more apps, more users, more developers to write more apps which attract more users and hence ... you see my point. And that's exactly their point too (stated in the introduction).

Which is funny, because that really reminds me of something else too. Vendor lock-in - but this time replace software and file-formats with users and applications. That's about where Google is at the moment and it's only getting worse.

Luckily some other people are also concerned about this. I can only hope that what Francois said to me today comes true. That Google can get it wrong at the start and it can get better as time goes on. I hope he's right and I truly hope that Google's "Do No Evil" policy wins through in the end even if that is debatable sometimes.

What Google can do to alleviate some of this is allow more open access for users and their accounts. It's a two step process with a third note:

  1. become an OpenID provider and make each Google Accounts an OpenID
  2. become a real OpenID consumer and allow sign-ups and sign-ins to Google Accounts with OpenID
  3. and no, allowing OpenID comments on Blogger and providing OpenID on Blogger in Beta is not good enough

(Note: None of these things provide technical freedom from their AppEngine infrastructure but I consider the user data is more important than that.)

I'm not holding much hope out though and whatever they do, I'm sticking to my view that Google are getting too big and too strong. At some stage in the future, their dream and marketing of an Open Web will descent into an Open Web of mostly Google Accounts and Google hosted apps and that's when we'll suffer.

But what can we do?

The easiest thing is for me to do what I did with Facebook and just quit Google. But the thought of finding replacements for all those services I'm using is too much - Gmail, Reader, Calendar, Bookmarks, Analytics and a few others I use. Some of which can be easily replaced (Magnolia for Bookmarks) but others less so (Analytics?). Now I realise I'm locked in and it doesn't sit pretty.

There's not an easy solution for this and one I'm thinking very hard about at the moment.

Earlier this evening, I finished re-watching the original Star Wars trilogy so I will leave you with a quote which seems apt for this situation. From the enigmatic Han Solo:

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

And the final thought for this post; let's just hope that Google never turn to the dark side.

Labels: openid, google, walled-gardens, planet-geek, planet-catalyst, facebook, app-engine

Inserted: 2008-04-11 00:16 (3 years, 10 months ago)