So a union would help workers negotiate things like wages, benefits, and overall treatment of workers. What you are proposing with this analogy is some kind of organization that would somehow have the power from outside of a given business to force that business to adopt practices preferred by third parties. Not really the same thing, not sure how you would go about forming such an entity, and frankly it sounds pretty terrible for the business climate as a whole.

A union doesn't have to necessarily regulate wages - just be a source for developer grievance against companies that generate value from their work. Also consider that you don't have to be a part of the union if you don't agree with its principles. The only power a union has is from his members willing to negotiate collectively, there's nothing more to it.

The fundamental difference remains: a union is for influencing an organization by employees for the employees (within). What you want is to influence on behalf third parties with no affiliation with the organization.

I'm not sure what is the 3rd party you are referring to. There are two sides here - individual developers or small dev companies, and giant tech companies - who should be working together to create a healthy ecosystem, but when one is in conflict with the other the giant companies do whatever they want. A union is a collection of individuals / small companies that together have enough leverage to negotiate on better terms with the giant companies.

First of all, I don't think you understand what a union is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Stat...

Second, I don't think that's a very realistic picture of how things work. There are businesses which have a) a plan for how to operate and make money b) employees whom they pay to perform services. Then there are outside parties who may interact with that business in some way. But the business is going to operate in the fashion that makes the most sense for the business.

So Twitter has decided that it is in it's own best interest to limit how outside parties interact with its service. You'll have to convince them otherwise if you want to reverse that. Similarly, Apple has decided that allowing outside parties to have a certain degree of free reign in developing for its products is best for its business. Hopefully the distinction is fairly clear, but I'll lay it out because it seems like maybe it isn't to you:

Apple makes most of its money selling devices like iPhones, iPads, and computers. Third parties developing software for those devices only serves to increase their sales.

Twitter, on the other hand, is still trying to nail down their business model for making money. Third parties developing software using Twitter's APIs really only serves to increase the load on their servers. Perhaps initially it helped drive traffic, generate interface ideas, and even offered a company or two for Twitter to buy and integrate, but they are beyond that need now. At best they may be interested in allowing outside parties to build software on top of their service IF you grant them a share of the money you make in doing so (hence the whole, "let's talk when you get over your token limit" stance).

Businesses exist to make money. So if you want Twitter to open up their service, you'll need to demonstrate how it makes them money. That's the bottom line.

I don't want to get bogged by the semantics of a labor union since that is really not what I meant (and I think you know that). I'm talking a body representing developers in ecosystems where they are a part of, regardless of what semantic name you want to give that organization.

Apple and Twitter, both depend greatly on developers adding value to their ecosystem. You may say Apple sells devices, but it makes a huge part of its revenue from selling apps on the (iOS / Mac) appstore. Developers build those apps, not Apple (who develops a very small subset of integral apps). Those apps not only generate revenue directly via commissions, but also make their devices useful and attractive to the general population. Without the apps, the iPhone is a glorified PDA.

If you think developers are meaningless to those both companies and are just 3rd parties who have no influence, it is you who do not have a realistic picture of the state of things. Obviously, individual developers or small companies have no leverage. But a body representing a large portion of the developers on either platform will have such leverage and could make those companies make some concessions in the way they treat developers.

If all developers flocked to Android, Apple stock would crash. If developers pulled the plug on all of their twitter apps, Twitter would feel the effect strongly. Despite what you want to claim, developers do effect the bottom line for both companies substantially.

Apples profit from App store sales are pretty minuscule when compared with the profit they generate by device sales: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/apples-app-store-economics-ave... http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-apples-gross...

$538 million from app sales vs ~$60 billion from iphone sales and another ~$10 billion from ipad sales. I think the motivation for the app store is pretty clear based on that.

I'm not sure what you are basing your claim that Twitter would collapse without developers on, they manage their own in house Twitter clients now. You'll find that most users outside our little YC echo chamber use a) twitter.com b) one of the official Twitter clients

I really don't understand what you're saying. Are you denying how crucial the apps to the sales of the devices? do you think they could sell without the apps? in addition, do you think apple doesn't care about 500M$ in profits?

Also, are you saying that the twitter API and 3rd party apps have nothing to do with the success of twitter? I didn't say collapse, I said they would feel it strongly. Not sure what is your point, really.

My point isn't that Apple doesn't care about the money it makes from the app store, my point is that Apple has a vested monetary interest in keeping developers around going forward. iPhone sales pre-app store were pretty small; the app store drives a lot of their business.

Twitter, on the other hand, has no business interest in developers going forward. It's true they may not have gotten where they are without third party devs, but that need is gone now; they can move forward without them. You may lament that as being cruel in some manner, but that's business my friend. Twitter isn't going to collapse because they cut off third parties.

Just recall the first iPhone: its presentation was met with a lot of scepticism, it was very limited feature wise, it had no apps ecosystem and still was a huge success.