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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

#261

Post by ryantgtg »

numpad0 wrote: post #172
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your problem could be solved by providing read-only API for free - you don't need to write access to do academic research (unless you want to influence the discourse).

Twitter API had traditionally been configurable between read-only, read-write, read-write + DM. Most apps request either of the latter two, but you always could.

Does this change affect all access? Like, I have half a dozen bots that only write (post rss items).

At first I assumed this was only impacting read access (apps that mimic the twitter app), but now I’m not so sure.

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

#262

Post by nicpottier »

matwood wrote: post #246
lizzardbraind wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I like the theory that he's planning to discharge all of the debts he's run up in one fell swoop with a bankruptcy filing. It will be sad, but not unexpected if the courts let him get away with it. I wish I could buy a house with a mortgage in the house's name, make the house declare bankruptcy, and then keep ownership of it. Replace "house" with "Twitter", and that's the gambit. Although, the amount of d…

> I like the theory that he's planning to discharge all of the debts he's run up in one fell swoop with a bankruptcy filing. And that theory is incorrect. If Twitter goes into bankruptcy, the shareholders are wiped out. Ownership goes to the banks. He could be trying to drive the cost of the debt down (supposedly already down 40% on the open market), so he can buy it. But, the banks aren't stupid. He will absolutely…

If I recall the Matt Levine newsletter correctly the banks have already discounted the debt so I would think they'd be happy to sell it for less than the original $ value, either to Musk or Musk associates.

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

#263

Post by RheingoldRiver »

m3kw9 wrote: post #256
rsynnott wrote: post #60

Okay, so this one is nearly making me buy into those conspiracy theories that Musk is deliberately breaking Twitter because 4d chess (only nearly; this is incompetence rather than anything else). There's an argument to be had whether it makes sense for Twitter to have a free API tier. I personally think that it's obvious it should: - A lot of Twitter content/engagement is created by bots, and people quote-tweeting sa…

“ If there's a free tier, hobbyists and students can do interesting things with them, and this drives innovation.” Are these innovations in the room right now?

I have a discord bot that pulls a twitter feed into Discord & embeds it (server of 10k members). Pretty sure we can't do that anymore, starting next week.

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

#264

Post by westpfelia »

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)…

>This seems like more management by manchild.

Whaaaaaa but Elon is the god king who will deliver us from evil tech giants!! Are you saying he might be a greater conman then PT Barnum?

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

#265

Post by xigoi »

pjc50 wrote: post #255
senttoschool wrote: post #2

This is why I will never build a company based around a free API from a for-profit company. I'd never be able to sleep well at night knowing that years of work and all the employees/families that depend on the business is dependent on someone who could wake up one day and decide on a whim to end access.

You should never build a company based around phone calls, because one day your phone might get cut off. You should never build a company around electricity, because one day your electricity might get cut off.

Phone and electricity are not a monopoly. You can get them from different providers.

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

#266

Post by kibwen »

pessimizer wrote: post #241
krageon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simple: Use the website. It will never stop working because people use it and you can automate and scrape it just fine. Kind of sucks that you have to go through the effort - but then there is no social media corporation that isn't toxic in some way to it's userbase.

The website is awful. It's horrific. It was the worst site I visited regularly until I started using Nitter instances. I'd rather not know what is going on than go to it. I wish they'd wind the UI back 10 years, to back when it was pleasant to browse.

I look forward to someone teaching Elon Musk what version control is, resulting in him wholesale rolling back Twitter's entire stack to 2008. At last, Twitter is written in Ruby again!

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

#267

Post by nailer »

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)…

> This seems like more management by manchild.

You have good points and can probably make them without resorting to insults.

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

#268

Post by ajmurmann »

Yabood wrote: post #57

We have a business that relies on the Twitter API. I don’t mind paying to access the API, but the way they’re handling this makes me want to deprecate support for Twitter entirely. I am only learning about this change from this thread. Even worse, we only have 7 days to react.

This! The most striking thing about many of Musk's changes at Twitter isn't the idea behind the change but the appallingly bad execution. Things get rolled out practically over night with no explanation or warning. Same with the unannounced policy changes a few weeks ago. It's as if he'd not only never run a company, but never even worked at one. It feels like the intern is running the ship.

Edit: typo "bag" => "bad"

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

#269

Post by matwood »

nicpottier wrote: post #262
matwood wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like the theory that he's planning to discharge all of the debts he's run up in one fell swoop with a bankruptcy filing. And that theory is incorrect. If Twitter goes into bankruptcy, the shareholders are wiped out. Ownership goes to the banks. He could be trying to drive the cost of the debt down (supposedly already down 40% on the open market), so he can buy it. But, the banks aren't stupid. He will absolutely…

If I recall the Matt Levine newsletter correctly the banks have already discounted the debt so I would think they'd be happy to sell it for less than the original $ value, either to Musk or Musk associates.

As I mentioned, it's already down 40% last I saw. And they will take less, but they aren't going to give it away. One, it sets a bad precedence, and two it's bad business.

ML also mentioned he hoped Twitter would stiff the banks on the first interest payment like they have been doing all their other creditors. It would have been an entertaining game of chicken. The other unknown is if Elon really wants to dump more money into this, though he may feel pot committed. But what if he realizes there is no winning option?

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

#270

Post by kevincox »

gonzo41 wrote: post #212
nickjj wrote: post #181

Wow this is disruptive given it's less than 1 week's notice. I've been using a Jekyll plugin for like 4 years to embed tweets on my site. Nothing crazy, just using: https://github.com/rob-murray/jekyll-twitter-plugin Since it uses the API I guess that's going to go away. Sounds like I'll never link another tweet on my site again.

screenshots?

Why use an image where text will do (and will do better).

But in this case it does seem like copy/pasting the text may be better as it implicitly archives the content.

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