This was my favorite part of this product, the highlighted text is "doomed" and will be altered or removed at some point in the future. It's great to see how much editing happens after the initial draft.
I had only heard of Treatful in this space. They said a common use case they didn't expect was buying a gift card for someone on the other side of the country. A lot of times people wanted to get a friend a gift for a local joint in NYC but obviously couldn't pick it up. Makes sense.
I can relate to a lot of what Jon is saying in the article, but quite honestly the impression I've gotten is that investors are only interested in the "quick flip" and don't want to hear the grandiose plans.
It seems like if I were to talk to a potential investor and tell them the ideas I have to change consumer behavior for the better and connect an industry in a way that hasn't been done before, they'd tell me to stop dreaming and to forecast their 10x.
If every company sells to Google when they get a chance, who becomes the next Google?
We've seen in the past that Apple is willing to adopt superior technology. They saw the potential of adopting a unix system as well as adopting an Intel chip. This allows them to provide the same user experience while providing those users with power, should they want it.
The explanation they provide about the data model and approach to the solution seems well thought out. However, despite their emphasis on simplicity I couldn't help but think it seemed thoroughly complicated when the demo finally started.
I think Asana's approach is a good one. I'm always for someone that is willing to challenge the orthodox approach of the status quo. Besides, from their demo it seems as though they're aiming to appeal to more than just businesses.
I agree that we need to get to a more secure internet, but I'm not sure a walled garden is the way to accomplish this.
I feel like security holes are inherent in the nature of technology and its rapid development and evolution. The security threats that plagued the internet in the 90s are now obsolete. With new technology comes new threats. That's the way it will be and the only option we have is to stay vigilant and attempt to think of every edge case before black hats do.
To say that a walled garden is the solution is a dangerous statement. While this may provide a very safe platform such as iOS, it is also a stifled and languid platform due to the bottleneck of the approval process. We will be safe from security if we never make anything new. That's not a solution to the problem that's sacrificing future potential for economic activity.
While it's unfortunate that they're setting the precedent of discouraging certain uses of their API, it's also understandable. They're right to want their product to stay consistent and avoid fragmentation.
The irony of it is that they acquired their official client.