Whether it is the all-too-familiar “fail whale”, or the depressing “API Limit Exceeded” message in TweetDeck, users are finding it difficult to deal with deteriorating service levels that are rendering the service unusable for any serious social networking.
Of course, Twitter is “free”. As such, we are told that it is offered to us “as-is” and, since you get what you pay for, expectations that it will be there when you need/want it; fully-functional and void of yo-yoing, syncopating starts and stops; is simply asking too much.
In today’s post by Thomas Wailgum, “Twitter Rage: Can you Really Complain About Outages?”, he makes the point:
Think about it: The fact that I’m not paying a cent for the Twitter service means that I don’t have much ground to place “buyer-seller” type expectations upon the immature service. (This isn’t Salesforce.com downtime or disruptions with internal enterprise systems.) My outrage is tempered by my acceptance of the “free deal” I have with Twitter: You get what you pay for.
While a conventional “buyer-seller” arrangement is not evident, a binding contract is a bargain where the parties each get something for good and valuable consideration. Indeed, as the Twitter Terms state “… You may use the Services only if you can form a binding contract with Twitter…”.
Twitter’s Terms go on:
In consideration for Twitter granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Twitter and its third party providers and partners may place such advertising on the Services or in connection with the display of Content or information from the Services whether submitted by you or others.
So, the bargain is that you get access to and use of the Services and Twitter gets all of the ad revenue, content, demographic information, and the ultimate financial value of their property that appreciates on the backs of the millions of users that expect to be able to have access to and use of the Service. Seems to me to be reasonable “payment” for “services” rendered.
And, of course, there is that “AS-IS” escape hatch. Thus, there is no warranty and I (or anybody else) cannot make a claim for damages. Fine.
But, as far as expectations go, I am not as willing, anymore, to give Twitter an easy “Pass” because they are growing so fast and are not yet mature. The Twitter value proposition is diminishing as my time is being squandered on a service that is not getting better because too many interfaces are sucking the life out of it and too many users are being added to the pile.
I hope it gets better.
Luckily, we, as users, have no obligation to stay with the “service”. If it gets bad enough, we’ll be gone and “AS-IS” will become “AS-WAS”.
Tell me what you think.
©2010 George M. Tomko All Rights Reserved