You're looking at this completely the wrong way. For starters:
who is Google to dictate what other companies do with their own data
It's our data, not Facebooks, not Google's. Google is providing a benefit for Facebook and it's users and in return want's Facebook to provide the same. This is a good business decision for Google, a relatively very small nuisance for Facebook (since they do have a feature to export data), and a great BIG step in providing us, the USERS, with simple ways to use out data wherever/however we see fit. They are not dictating what other companies should do with their data, they're asking for the data stream to be importable/exportable by means of a two way sync in which the user is the one in control of their information.
Also, "substantially fast" and "easy", means "in a non crippling way". They don't want to get screwed over by Facebook adding what Google requests but maiming to a point it's not useful to anyone, in which case both the users and Google suffer from it.
How is this going to affect us - the small startups and independed developers
How is it going to affect you? Easy, after you leverage Google's API for years to get a gazillion users and a 25 billion dollar valuation, Google is going to expect you to play nice and share your data with them, but only if your users want to so anyway.
You know what sounds borderline evil to me? That you want to leverage the users data the resides in Google's servers and also take advantage of the API's Google make accessible, but don't want to have to go thru the trouble of giving them the same treatment. I find the company that doesn't comply with such a simple request more evil than the company that provides such a service and wants to build a relationship based on reciprocity, but is forced to close it's doors because someone doesn't want to play nice.
who is Google to dictate what other companies do with their own data
It's our data, not Facebooks, not Google's. Google is providing a benefit for Facebook and it's users and in return want's Facebook to provide the same. This is a good business decision for Google, a relatively very small nuisance for Facebook (since they do have a feature to export data), and a great BIG step in providing us, the USERS, with simple ways to use out data wherever/however we see fit. They are not dictating what other companies should do with their data, they're asking for the data stream to be importable/exportable by means of a two way sync in which the user is the one in control of their information.
Also, "substantially fast" and "easy", means "in a non crippling way". They don't want to get screwed over by Facebook adding what Google requests but maiming to a point it's not useful to anyone, in which case both the users and Google suffer from it.
How is this going to affect us - the small startups and independed developers
How is it going to affect you? Easy, after you leverage Google's API for years to get a gazillion users and a 25 billion dollar valuation, Google is going to expect you to play nice and share your data with them, but only if your users want to so anyway.
You know what sounds borderline evil to me? That you want to leverage the users data the resides in Google's servers and also take advantage of the API's Google make accessible, but don't want to have to go thru the trouble of giving them the same treatment. I find the company that doesn't comply with such a simple request more evil than the company that provides such a service and wants to build a relationship based on reciprocity, but is forced to close it's doors because someone doesn't want to play nice.