I’m disappointed in this move for a few reasons. One, February 9th is 7 days away. That’s pretty short notice. Two, not offering a free tier at least is a bad move. There are lots of APIs with a free usage tier like YouTube.

I’m also disappointed that some software I use will no longer work.

Nick Taylor

@nickytonline

I’m guessing this means @elgato Stream Deck integrations with Twitter will no longer work come February 9th then? Not knocking you Elgato. Love my Stream Deck. twitter.com/twitterdev/sta…

11:39 AM - 02 Feb 2023

Twitter Dev @TwitterDev

Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead 🧵

Comment button Reply

Just saw the pricing and wow! Ridiculous.

BuckyDroid

@buckydroid

Twitter API access is now paid. $149 for just 500 requests...

That's way too much.

11:12 AM - 02 Feb 2023

Comment button Reply

I have already written about this on another post by @erinposting. I think it really limits the creativity of developers, we won't be able to do anything unless we pay for access.

And I admit it's not great of them, but the time allowed before the change is so short... 😡

I can't say I'm disappointed, as Twitter has been acting weirdly since as far as I can remember, sometimes eating third-party apps alive.

They broke stuff without transparent communication, giving headaches to many developers. It might sound easy to speak with insight and, as everybody wants to get the precious data, a lot of money is at stake.

However, I must admit I never liked this API, and had lots of problems following changes with my own wrapper (I used to maintain a Twitter library for a CMS).

I guess the free API was a strategy to gain traction in the early days and to promote the worth of the platform as the voice of the people. Building apps and tools against it felt fine as it had existed for so long; it never got a soft landing to a more sensible commercial model, instead EM has decided it just doesn't make any sense - he's the one responsible for the billions of dollars in interest payments alone.

There is no intrinsic reason why anyone should access Twitter data for free, it doesn't make sense as it costs money to deliver the service and creates many other outlets that effectively compete with part of the business's core - it's Twitter client app etc.

I see this as different to Heroku in that the primary purpose of that business is to host apps, the primary purpose of Twitter is nothing to do with an app ecosystem or third party data-analytics. Even so, who can blame Heroku for trying to economise with soaring energy prices that directly affect their bottom line?

The problem with relying on soft agreements, with no guarantees of future availability, is that your whole business model can vanish over night. I've seen it happen with companies relying on Facebook data, Facebook have seen it happen with Apple privacy changes etc etc.

Sadly, for businesses who have relied on a free service and who cannot justify whatever the costs end up being, it's time to move on. My advice is to be sure of the licensing agreements you enter into, caveat emptor.

The very short window to try to work out a plan does seem very unfair and I am not at all sure that the reputational damage isn't going to cost quite a lot. EM is gambling that it will work and people have short memories. We'll see.

I'm not surprised, especially considering the bombshell they dropped a couple of weeks ago where they banned third party apps.

you can still use the unofficial api like nitter

This is worst. Thousands of projects will die. Just like heroku. The other day i was looking on the repo of open API, I've 2 in 10 api's are dead because of heroku.
This is so bad.