Another good book is Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You a.co/dFcMbVj. It argues that for a platform to survive and block competition from entering its market, it must absorb the best innovations of their partners into its core. This is done out of fear that partners will become their own platforms or will also offer their services on rival platforms.
Of course, the fair way of doing this absorption is by buying out partners or their products. However, it is not necessary. GitHub does send a negative message for now, but lucky for them the attention span of the online user is short and the memory is even shorter. If the integration goes well, the majority of users will thank them and still continue developing for the platform. If it fails, the 3rd party tools won't go away since they still are used by the community. This is the magic of platforms :)
Another good book is Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You a.co/dFcMbVj. It argues that for a platform to survive and block competition from entering its market, it must absorb the best innovations of their partners into its core. This is done out of fear that partners will become their own platforms or will also offer their services on rival platforms.
Of course, the fair way of doing this absorption is by buying out partners or their products. However, it is not necessary. GitHub does send a negative message for now, but lucky for them the attention span of the online user is short and the memory is even shorter. If the integration goes well, the majority of users will thank them and still continue developing for the platform. If it fails, the 3rd party tools won't go away since they still are used by the community. This is the magic of platforms :)
I read this a couple years ago and I forget most of the details, sounds like it's time for another go!