Simon Willison’s Weblog

MySpace Blocking Widgets? Making your business dependent on revenue from MySpace is sharecropping of the worst possible kind.

Posted 19th January 2007 at 9:54 am

Tagged myspace, sharecropping, widgets

5 comments

Why is it sharecropping? Why, if MySpace have set this thing up, should they be able to lock everyone else out?

sil - 19th January 2007 11:03 - #
It's sharecropping because you end up dependent on MySpace for big chunks of your revenue (YouTube is a good example: it's unlikely they would have grown nearly as fast if it wasn't for YouTube videos embedded on MySpace pages) - but MySpace don't even have a contractual oblication to you and can pull the rug from under you at any time. The only thing stopping them from doing so is complaints from their users.

Simon Willison - 19th January 2007 11:57 - #
OK, but it's not *exploitative* sharecropping. MySpace aren't exploiting widget makers. It may be idiotic of the widget makers to make that business work, but it's not bad *sharecropping*; the problematic thing with sharecropping is the landlord exploiting the tenant, and the tenant isn't being exploited here. YouTube don't have to pay to have YouTube widgets on MySpace pages.

sil - 19th January 2007 15:50 - #
Good point - sharecropping might be the wrong term. The point I was trying to make was that building a business based on MySpace widgets is a pretty scary idea seeing as they can cut you off on a whim. It was meant to be a bit of a dig at the growing MySpace economy.
Simon Willison - 19th January 2007 17:52 - #
Completely agree with you on that point. On the flipside, that sounds rather like what doing business with any big corporation who might decide to kill you is, though...

sil - 19th January 2007 21:50 - #