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Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API

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Re: Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API

#41

Post by wil421 »

Felkomo wrote: post #39
anigbrowl wrote: post #3

- announced at 10pm - basically a week to decide what to do with your dev project - No information to help you make that decision This seems like more management by manchild. I strongly suspect that Musk realized his promises of cutting down bots etc. were failing and that they either couldn't or wouldn't develop abuse detection, so he's decided to solve the problem by making it cost money, with the (perhaps desired)…

But there is no need for Twitter to allow you to do that for free just because. From a pure business perspective it's either Twitter dies or Elon pays the bills.

I’m sure it didn’t help that Elon pissed off most of Twitter’s advertisers. They jumped shipped as soon as he took over.

> Daily Revenue Has Dropped 40%, 500 Top Advertisers Have Left

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/twitter-manager-dail...

Re: Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API

#42

Post by optionalsquid »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #36
olliej wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC the twitter website goes to great lengths to mangle itself to prevent ad blockers presumably. Of course this used to have the side effect of breaking significant swathes of basic browser UX, especially in areas of accessibility. I assume they’re better now than they once were, but given musk’s historical behavior I assume he won’t consider breaking something like accessibility to be bad or problematic.

> musk’s historical behavior I assume he won’t consider breaking something like accessibility to be bad or problematic. I don't see why would he spend more to make website less accessible. Not fixing bugs - yes, just about everyone does so. But breaking it intentionally costs money. Tesla's aren't THE most accessible (by cost) EV out there, but SpaceX def is.

Supposedly the entire accessibility team got laid off [1], so there might not be anyone left to ensure that changes to existing features do not reduce accessibility nor ensure that new features are accessible. Not that I'd expect Musk to care a whole lot about concerns raised in that regard, considering that he supposedly went ahead with Twitter Blue despite significant (and well warranted) concerns from the Trust and Safety team [2]. So Twitter will probably become less and less accessible over time.

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-layoffs-accessibility/

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-sent-musk-risks-paid...

Re: Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API

#43

Post by kbrkbr »

Just migrated my infosec early warning bot (search for #zeroday etc. plus a spam filter) to Mastodon. Goodbye and good riddance Twitter! Thinking also of all these data science courses that need to be updated now, I did two on edX and both had a Twitter project afair. Maybe they just do the same.

Re: Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API

#44

Post by Ciantic »

Felkomo wrote: post #39
anigbrowl wrote: post #3

- announced at 10pm - basically a week to decide what to do with your dev project - No information to help you make that decision This seems like more management by manchild. I strongly suspect that Musk realized his promises of cutting down bots etc. were failing and that they either couldn't or wouldn't develop abuse detection, so he's decided to solve the problem by making it cost money, with the (perhaps desired)…

But there is no need for Twitter to allow you to do that for free just because. From a pure business perspective it's either Twitter dies or Elon pays the bills.

Twitter wouldn't die if they don't pay bills, someone would buy it for huge discount. It seems like it would be the best way forward, depending on who would buy it. A lot of people don't follow news or Elon drama, the brand still has a lot of value. Especially abroad where news about Elon are much fewer.

Re: Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API

#45

Post by parker_mountain »

Felkomo wrote: post #39
anigbrowl wrote: post #3

- announced at 10pm - basically a week to decide what to do with your dev project - No information to help you make that decision This seems like more management by manchild. I strongly suspect that Musk realized his promises of cutting down bots etc. were failing and that they either couldn't or wouldn't develop abuse detection, so he's decided to solve the problem by making it cost money, with the (perhaps desired)…

But there is no need for Twitter to allow you to do that for free just because. From a pure business perspective it's either Twitter dies or Elon pays the bills.

From a business perspective, you don't want to alienate developers who work to build your ecosystem.

A more sane way to do this would have been with a public tweet explaining why they were doing it (ad revenue), a 3 month lead time, and an API for helping apps get users to "upgrade" their account.

Re: Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API

#46

Post by aspyct »

Ciantic wrote: post #44
Felkomo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is no need for Twitter to allow you to do that for free just because. From a pure business perspective it's either Twitter dies or Elon pays the bills.

Twitter wouldn't die if they don't pay bills, someone would buy it for huge discount. It seems like it would be the best way forward, depending on who would buy it. A lot of people don't follow news or Elon drama, the brand still has a lot of value. Especially abroad where news about Elon are much fewer.

Sure. Is that person going to run it for free alone in his basement?

It's not only the code base. It's employees, servers, processes, data...

Even if you get twitter for free, you still need to pay to run it.

Re: Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API

#47

Post by Ciantic »

aspyct wrote: post #46
Ciantic wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter wouldn't die if they don't pay bills, someone would buy it for huge discount. It seems like it would be the best way forward, depending on who would buy it. A lot of people don't follow news or Elon drama, the brand still has a lot of value. Especially abroad where news about Elon are much fewer.

Sure. Is that person going to run it for free alone in his basement? It's not only the code base. It's employees, servers, processes, data... Even if you get twitter for free, you still need to pay to run it.

The social graph on Twitter is hugely valuable. Even if they went bust and the service would be unavailable for a year, the social graph and brand value are important.

One reason Mastodon and others have trouble is that people don't want to follow random people, they want to follow the same people they did on Twitter. It's their community.

Certain communities did make a successful switch, like Apple and Tech journalist communities, but not a lot of other communities.

Re: Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API

#48

Post by fortyseven »

Felkomo wrote: post #39
anigbrowl wrote: post #3

- announced at 10pm - basically a week to decide what to do with your dev project - No information to help you make that decision This seems like more management by manchild. I strongly suspect that Musk realized his promises of cutting down bots etc. were failing and that they either couldn't or wouldn't develop abuse detection, so he's decided to solve the problem by making it cost money, with the (perhaps desired)…

But there is no need for Twitter to allow you to do that for free just because. From a pure business perspective it's either Twitter dies or Elon pays the bills.

[flagged]

Re: Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API

#50

Post by mrzool »

kbrkbr wrote: post #43

Just migrated my infosec early warning bot (search for #zeroday etc. plus a spam filter) to Mastodon. Goodbye and good riddance Twitter! Thinking also of all these data science courses that need to be updated now, I did two on edX and both had a Twitter project afair. Maybe they just do the same.

> my infosec early warning bot

What's the handle? Sounds interesting :)

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