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Twitter’s $42k-per-month API prices out nearly everyone

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Re: Twitter’s $42k-per-month API prices out nearly everyone

#211

Post by nerdix »

mike_d wrote: post #24

All of these moves make sense when you zoom out and realize Musk has no interest in Twitter as a business. It is a megaphone to amplify his own voice and the voices that support his viewpoints. Having third party API consumers able to pull in content and reorder it other than how he wants it presented is counter to that goal. The genius of Fox News was "why spend money on buying political attack ads when you can just…

That might make economic sense if you build it with relatively small investment from the ground up.

Doesn't make economic sense at all if you buy it for $44 billion when it was already on shakey financial grounds.

Re: Twitter’s $42k-per-month API prices out nearly everyone

#212

Post by mrtksn »

viscanti wrote: post #80
mrtksn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academic work has all kinds of costs, why should data be free of charge?

How many researchers can and will pay $42k per month for access? What's the market size here? Is this anything more than a drop in the bucket for Twitter?

I don't know but it's theirs to sell and find the right price.

> Is this anything more than a drop in the bucket for Twitter?

I don't know, Twitter were selling office furniture and cutting on the food on campus. So maybe it's not just a drop in the bucket after all?

Re: Twitter’s $42k-per-month API prices out nearly everyone

#213

Post by mike_hearn »

isubasinghe wrote: post #191
favaq wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anything positive coming out of academia having access to the Twitter firehose.

sigh this is just straight up wrong, I was an RA that worked on a real time social media analytics software. We were able to pick up on things like likely covid infections sites etc.

Try searching Google Scholar for "social bot", or to save time, just read this paper:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3814191

Academia has flooded the literature with >10,000 research papers based on the Twitter API feed. Virtually none of it is reproducible, it's frequently based on circular logic, the methodologies are unscientific and the conclusions are usually deeply partisan, but it nonetheless gets amplified by the media as "proof" of various false claims.

Count me in the camp of people who is happy Musk is doing this. I've been writing for years about the plague of "social bot" research coming out of academia that's based on the Twitter API:

https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-ii-bots-that-are-n...

https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f...

Maybe your specific work on COVID was good, but it was certainly drowned out by the work that was sharply net negative for both society and science. Academic institutions were clearly never going to get the problem under control, so booting them out whilst allowing search engines and the like to continue accessing the feed seems like a good solution.

Re: Twitter’s $42k-per-month API prices out nearly everyone

#214

Post by pxmpxm »

czzr wrote: post #169
olalonde wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did he? My understanding was that it was not profitable and that he's been cutting costs and exploring new sources of income (Twitter Blue, API fee, etc.). I don't know if he'll be successful but his actions seem consistent with him caring about Twitter as a business. In fact, he seems to have sacrificed his public image considerably towards that goal (not consistent with him mostly caring about his "megaphone").

Your understanding is wrong, I’m afraid. Twitter was profitable before the acquisition. (If you look this up don’t be misled by the once-off loss caused by losing a legal case).

TWTR has underperformed nasdaq by a factor of 2 since going public. It's been a woefully inefficient organization and there's no amount of political bias that can paper over that.

Re: Twitter’s $42k-per-month API prices out nearly everyone

#215

Post by mftrhu »

briandear wrote: post #143
anigbrowl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academics don't resell the data to others. In fact, their existing agreements with Twitter requires their published datasets (for reproducibility) to be anonymized precisely to ensure they don't become a commercial goldmine. Given that most of the article is about the pricing tiers for academic use, based on marketing communications to universities, your comment seems strangely indifferent to the context of this news…

Except if I want to buy some piece of academic research, they sell articles for as high at $60. Why aren’t academics complaining about the absurd costs for the public accessing their information?

... they are.

Re: Twitter’s $42k-per-month API prices out nearly everyone

#216

Post by zpeti »

dragonwriter wrote: post #155
olalonde wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also consistent with his stated goal of making the business profitable.

> Also consistent with his stated goal of making the business profitable. It was profitable. He caused it to hurtle toward bankruptcy.

> He caused

He almost certainly caused some advertisers to leave, but as a reference snapchat had similar decreases in advertising spend, so its hard to argue this is all Musk and not considerably due to economic conditions and apple's privacy changes

Re: Twitter’s $42k-per-month API prices out nearly everyone

#217

Post by washadjeffmad »

gamblor956 wrote: post #82

I'm surprised that nobody has noticed that the price was set at 42k because it's another one of Musk's 420 (aka weed) jokes, and not because of any specific data showing that is the optimal price point for this offering.

It's a luxury service. There is no optimal price outside of "high enough to prevent entities for whom money is an object from applying".

Re: Twitter’s $42k-per-month API prices out nearly everyone

#218

Post by cmh89 »

quest88 wrote: post #140
cmh89 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What are his viewpoints Musk is very vocal about his far-right views. He's anti-union, anti-public health, etc. >how are they amplified considering anybody can post anything? Anyone can post anything, but Musk can and has systemically prioritized his tweets over organic content.

Whoah whoah whoa. I don't care for Elon, but let's be intentional about using "far-right". [Caveat: Assume USA left and right parties are discussed] If we keep throwing that around when we mean right leaning or politically right views then anyone on the right is going to be "far-right" and we're never going to work together. I think that the other comments to you are to point out where Elon has fascist or Nazism beli…

Elon is far-right. I meant what I said and I said what I meant. I'm very familiar with far-right ideology. No need to link to Wikipedia

>If we keep throwing that around when we mean right leaning or politically right views then anyone on the right is going to be "far-right

The GOP is a far-right political party. They are fundamentally anti-democracy.

>and we're never going to work together.

We aren't going to work together regardless because the far-right GOP doesn't want the same things as most Americans. They are a political minority that can wreak havoc on the country due to poorly thought electoral systems.

>I think that the other comments to you are to point out where Elon has fascist or Nazism beliefs.

There is more to the far-right than having Nazism beliefs. American far-right is Christian Fascist. Elon Musk is a fascist a la Henry Ford.

Re: Twitter’s $42k-per-month API prices out nearly everyone

#219

Post by quest88 »

cmh89 wrote: post #218
quest88 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoah whoah whoa. I don't care for Elon, but let's be intentional about using "far-right". [Caveat: Assume USA left and right parties are discussed] If we keep throwing that around when we mean right leaning or politically right views then anyone on the right is going to be "far-right" and we're never going to work together. I think that the other comments to you are to point out where Elon has fascist or Nazism beli…

Elon is far-right. I meant what I said and I said what I meant. I'm very familiar with far-right ideology. No need to link to Wikipedia >If we keep throwing that around when we mean right leaning or politically right views then anyone on the right is going to be "far-right The GOP is a far-right political party. They are fundamentally anti-democracy. >and we're never going to work together. We aren't going to work to…

Ok, let's keep throwing out accusations without any proof. Umm...Elon...Elon once told the queen of England that he wishes he could be a queen!

Re: Twitter’s $42k-per-month API prices out nearly everyone

#220

Post by cmh89 »

quest88 wrote: post #219
cmh89 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon is far-right. I meant what I said and I said what I meant. I'm very familiar with far-right ideology. No need to link to Wikipedia >If we keep throwing that around when we mean right leaning or politically right views then anyone on the right is going to be "far-right The GOP is a far-right political party. They are fundamentally anti-democracy. >and we're never going to work together. We aren't going to work to…

Ok, let's keep throwing out accusations without any proof. Umm...Elon...Elon once told the queen of England that he wishes he could be a queen!

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/elon-...

He provides vocal and material support to fascist and far-right causes such as vaccine conspiracies and transphobia. He's anti-labor, anti-safety regulations.

I'm guessing you're one of those folks who want to pretend he's not far-right until he openly wears a swastika.

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