Build a Business on Twitter? Really?

In an otherwise excellent rebuttal to a rather ill-thought-out complaint about Twitter rate-limiting their API, Marco misses what I think is the main reason for not building a business completely reliant on Twitter: Twitter has no business model; Twitter is burning through cash; Twitter could quite literally cease to exist by this time next year.

The original complaintant states:

I’m arguing that 20,000, or any request-rate limit for that matter, limits any app out there from being able to develop on the Twitter platform, and I don’t see why any able-minded entrepreneur would want to build on it if there’s such a rate limit in place.

I’m all for digging at the edges to find hitherto undiscovered business opportunities but frankly if your business model involves 100% reliance on a flaky, profitless company to provide you your platform and the life-blood of your enterprise then Twitter isn’t the one screwing your business, you are. Repeat after me: “Twitter owes me nothing. Twitter owes me nothing.”

In the end, Marco nails it:

Even if they call their services “application platforms” and you call your business “new media” or a “mashup”. Building a business exclusively on top of another service is irresponsible and naïve.

To better understand the ramifications of this sort of odd behaviour I highly recommend reading Fuck The Cloud by Jason Scott.