The Future of Parse

http://blog.parse.com/2013/04/25/the-future-of-parse/

by ninthfrank07 • 13 years ago

85 39 13 years ago

blog.parse.com

jpadilla_• 13 years ago

Congrats to the great team at Parse!

orangethirty3• 13 years ago

Why?

antoinec• 13 years ago

Because they made an awesome product and deserve this maybe.

parshap• 13 years ago

I guess Facebook wants Open Graph (and their other APIs) to eventually be the primary backend for apps. Makes sense.

romain_dardour• 13 years ago

I don't believe it's gonna roll that way with developers. They want full control and access to their data and Facebook is not the kind.

collypops• 13 years ago

Facebook are stepping into new (for them) territory here. Unless this is an acqui-hire, it may be an "X isn't shutting down" statement I can believe.

robryan• 13 years ago

Not really, I don't think Instagram is being shut down any time soon. Unless you are talking about then running a subscription service as new ground?

BenSS3• 13 years ago

I'll say congratulations to the individuals who helped build Parse and show everyone good developer docs.

As a user of Parse, I'm done. I have zero confidence that the service will continue as is for very long, despite the best intentions of the original team. Biggest concerns are requiring FB auth, FB's flippant attitude towards privacy, and the engineering culture mismatch.

dopamean3• 13 years ago

Ilya Sukhar specifically cited the culture compatibility as one of the reasons they chose Facebook. I'm curious about why you think that there is a culture mismatch.

benatkin• 13 years ago

I think it's similar between the culture compatibility of Instagram and facebook. They became culturally compatible because the main people involved in the company being acquired adapted their ideals to become a part of the acquiring company for a giant payoff, big whoop.

BenSS3• 13 years ago

Facebook is perfectly willing to release "features" of unknown quality to the user population. The developer documentation&communication is still awful (instead of outright misleading as it was a couple years ago).

This seems completely counter to the way Parse has operated so far. Perhaps on a personal level it's a great fit, but in operation? Doesn't seem like it.

coldtea4• 13 years ago

Well, actually Facebook choose them. And lots of money were involved. So we can all be cynical to the "culture compatibility" thing.

infinitone• 13 years ago

What are alternatives to Parse?

This acquisition just created a better opportunity for a new player. I for one cannot trust Facebook's handling of their data- let alone my apps data.

jchrisa• 13 years ago

If you want to control your own data, we are building a synchronizing database for mobile https://github.com/couchbase/mobile

This isn't a full backend as a service, but for data storage we are hoping to hit a good 80% point where folks can use Couchbase Lite and pretty much just rely on their mobile app chops / not have to worry about the backend.

rdouble2• 13 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5609898

Parse is hands down the best of the bunch, though.

shotolab• 13 years ago

Azure

eric_bullington2• 13 years ago

Firebase and Stackmob, to name two. Stackmob even has a big "Migrating from Parse? It's quick and painless..." hero banner on their home page today.

gogatsby2• 13 years ago

Parse is a great service. I can only assume the team is as awesome as their product. Fingers crossed some of the Parse approach to product and developer service rubs off on facebook. Well I guess buying the company they want some of the developer love Parse has.

modarts• 13 years ago

>Fingers crossed some of the Parse approach to product and developer service rubs off on facebook

That'd be like boiling the ocean.

gogatsby2• 13 years ago

Hah hah, good one.

veidr• 13 years ago

Parse was an interesting, exciting service; now it's not.

And, I have a hunch that all that stuff on their blog about how nothing's gonna change is even more bullshit than it usually is when a cool startup gets acquired by a walmart. Because since it's Facebook buying them, Parse isn't going to get most of the future customers they might have gotten.

Most developers probably understand at a visceral level that using Facebook as the opaque backend provider for your customers' private information would be like using Oracle as your open-source community relations manager, or using McDonald's as your nutritional consultant.

eric_bullington2• 13 years ago

Agreed. I'm now really glad I didn't choose to use Parse for an upcoming project -- I seriously considered it.

I do think there is now a particularly acute need for an open source project that implements Parse's REST API. Maybe a Python project using Flask? If I had the time...

anuraj• 13 years ago

Just means that now I have to look elsewhere or roll my own cloud data store and push proxy. It is a small inconvenience, but not something insurmountable.

firefoxman1• 13 years ago

Looking at all these comments has me wondering: Why is it that as soon as a startup is acquired we immediately abandon it as if it's going offline tomorrow? I first remember noticing this when FriendFeed was acquired. As soon as I read the news, I quit using it. I checked back about a week later and sure enough, the only ones using it were blogs like TechCrunch.

Any ideas why we (that includes me) behave this way?

cthackers• 13 years ago

My guess is that startups mostly are about users. Great and innovative service, good support and energy. As soon as some big company acquires it, they start pushing things down your throat you may not like. A small company can't abuse you in that way since they must hold on users with both hands to survive. Big companies can't care less about you and they have the $$ to live just as well without you.

junto• 13 years ago

Parse becomes one of the many strings to Facebook's bow. Parse by itself was a single very good offering. Facebook can now "sunset" Parse whenever they feel like it. My feeling is that Facebook bought Parse for the talent and the mobile knowledge, and not the product itself. I see the Parse engineers being moved out to help Facebook's real mobile strategy move forward. I may be proved wrong, but I'd be scared to invest my entire business on a backend I don't control. I'd be shit-scared to invest my entire business on a backend controlled by Facebook.

Facebook have shown time and time again that they do not care about the privacy of their users. They are not going to get that trust back any time soon. In my opinion the assumption that they could "get away with it" was a long term bad mistake on Zuckerberg's part.

As an aside, I don't post on Facebook anymore once I realised that my deleted data was not really deleted. Even today, almost a year and a half after deleting all my posts, check-ins and photos, my profile still shows 3 "hidden" check-ins. Until a few months ago, a "deleted" (a.k.a hidden) album was still showing in the album count. Facebook has a few bugs when they do their entity counts, which show up their logical rather than physical deletes. Sorry, but when I delete something, I expect it to be deleted, not just marked as deleted.

I don't trust them as far as I can throw them, and I really can't throw a 8000 lb gorilla very far.

The Future of Parse

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