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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

#391

Post by conductr »

numpad0 wrote: post #182
conductr wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how third party developers are additive to Twitter in the same way they're additive to Apple at all. If that's true at all, why would Twitter provide services for free? Why would Apple charge at all? (Especially from the beginning). It's a hard comparison because the value of the Apple ecosystem is so obvious and mutual. Twitter is junk on both sides; unless as a third party dev you just happened to find…

> I don't see how third party developers are additive to Twitter Then you're not in the community in which the third party elements(e.g. tweet aggregation, SSO login, fine grained access control) are vital part of. Which may be substantial, or not, and we as the sheep don't know.

You're right and I'm my sheepish hypothesis here is it's not substantial. I think twitter is largely a toy, if it were to completely vanish tomorrow, very little harm would actually be done to anyone. It's like a PMF question, does twitter have third party developers banging on their door with fists full of cash? No, they have a bunch of freeloaders that have built derivative toys.

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

#392

Post by dzhiurgis »

Sakos wrote: post #102
dragonwriter wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm pretty sure you know exactly what the poster meant ... No, I don't. It obviously is trying to say something about accessibility and SpaceX, but I don't see how the sense of accessbility being discussed in the thread even applies to SpaceX, much less what claim is being made.

Agree. It's quite the jump going from a user-centric website to a space launch company that is used by corporations and governments. Like, okay, I guess SpaceX is extremely accessible compared to other options in the space industry, but why would that have any bearing on how accessible the Twitter website is for you and me day-to-day?

Starlink has created more information accessibility that twitter will ever will

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

#393

Post by ryantgtg »

mcguire wrote: post #375
ryantgtg wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe things like @PossumEveryHour and some of the automated traffic/weather systems have announced they'll be shutting down.

Yeah, I'm seeing mass announcements of shutting down. I think some are holding out small hope that something will change in the next few days. I just checked and I have six active bots.

@isjesusreturned @badassnames @pinballmapcom etc.

Bummer.

I'll especially miss the Earthquake bots :(

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

#394

Post by luckylion »

rsynnott wrote: post #325
luckylion wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Use of paid-only APIs virtually always stagnates. You should add the keyword: expensive APIs. Nobody cares about pay $10 a month to experiment and use the API, especially if it makes things easier to get and not have to explain to some Twitter service why you need access. It's when they make it expensive that nobody will use it.

So, bad news on that: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1621259936524300289?s=46...

Ouch. If that's the final pricing, yeah, that's probably going to hurt enough that people stop using it.

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

#396

Post by zpeti »

cercatrova wrote: post #328
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It provides no direct income . But it provide monetary benefits by attracting and keeping users, which encourages ad spend. Or at least it used to, until the big advertisers were driven away. If someone is trying to run a business and doesn't understand how indirect income works they might want to consider something less challenging. What this actually does is remove API access from small startups, solo developers, a…

The number of users kept via the API is not as high as people might think, so I would actually agree that if that's the case, then Musk correctly shut off the API for people who weren't bringing in more benefits than the costs they were incurring.

Frankly the guy designed rockets that landed for the first time ever so I think he probably has the brain capacity to make this calculation.

He might not be great at decisions where people and politics are involved, but this isn’t one of those decisions. But some people here on HN really want to believe he’s an idiot, which he’s not.

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

#397

Post by jahnu »

kderbyma wrote: post #395

Musk is an idiot. This is just another example of idiocy ... the best thing he provided was a meme face....and the sad face meme

Deliberately killing off free content sources for your platform that relies on fresh content to monetise is truly one of the most clueless things I’ve seen him do so far.

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

#398

Post by anigbrowl »

alexvoda wrote: post #206
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)…

Care to link some resources for amateur network science? Search keywords? What tools do you use to monitor the spread of news?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34321135

Lots of stuff in this thread from myself and multiple other people.

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

#399

Post by [deleted] »

zimpenfish wrote: post #341
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does not take much effort. Below is an example using curl. For reading Twitter feeds I just get the JSON and read the "full_text" objects. I have simple custom program I wrote that turns JSON of unlimited size into something like line-delimited JSON so I can use sed, grep and awk on it but HN readers probably prefer jq. For checking out t.co URLs I use HTTP/1.1 pipelining. Usage for reading is something like (but not…

What happens if/when they block that Bearer token?

[deleted]

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

#400

Post by HWR_14 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #344
HWR_14 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musks promises of cutting down on bots only mattered to him and to the degree he made a big deal about it. He could have declared victory whenever and been done with it. Who would have argued.

I think people would have argued with him. There are people that fawn on him one day and then complain that 'the algorithm has shadowbanned them again' the next, and he spends a surprising amount of time engaging with them. It's like some weird parody of an abusive relationship, with the world's erstwhile richest man and uber-CEO earnestly and repeatedly appeasing influencers like 'Catturd.' To an extent I think this…

You are correct people on the internet would have argued with them. I should have been clearer. His employees at Twitter, the bankers, the minority shareholders of Twitter and the advertisers would have all accepted his claim that "bots have been defeated enough".
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