I really hope more users discover Pixelfed. As a developer, it was so easy to work with (99% people of the time just treat it like the Mastodon API).
Tell HN: Instagram's API has broken, support tickets ignored, status page green
51–60 of 85 posts
Re: Tell HN: Instagram's API has broken, support tickets ignored, status page green
#52> Many companies and tools are built on and rely on this API for their product & daily operations. Hopefully not their entire product. The first rule is don't build your company on the back of another, but I think the most important part is that if you do use another company, make sure you're fine if they disappear one day. The last time Facebook made major changes (ostensibly as a response to the Cambridge Analytica…
this is easy to say as a comment on HN but unavoidable to a large degree for businesses in the marketing and social media space.
you play in the mud, you're going to get dirty. if your entire marketing company focuses on social, then why that doesn't fall into "all eggs, one basket" concept is beyond me. Sure, it's much easier to get a company rolling when you have to do nothing but use the product of someone else as the core of your business, but why that's not an immediate red flag to someone in that position is something i just don't understand.
Re: Tell HN: Instagram's API has broken, support tickets ignored, status page green
#53> Many companies and tools are built on and rely on this API for their product & daily operations. Hopefully not their entire product. The first rule is don't build your company on the back of another, but I think the most important part is that if you do use another company, make sure you're fine if they disappear one day. The last time Facebook made major changes (ostensibly as a response to the Cambridge Analytica…
I have the same attitude and it is severely restricting my creativity. While I think "don’t build on other peoples APIs", others just launched many tools built on top of Instagram, OpenAI, Twitter and whatnot.
By now I feel like it’s better to build on top of an API, be aware that it might go away one day but make money while it lasts, which can be many years.
Re: Tell HN: Instagram's API has broken, support tickets ignored, status page green
#54They created a complete mess. One would think such a high prestige employer would employ competent managers and software developers, but that does clearly not translate to what they produce. Lots of words, little deeds. And then they decide to lay off people and it apparently makes it only worse.
Re: Tell HN: Instagram's API has broken, support tickets ignored, status page green
#55I mean, Meta's developer terms literally say you agree they can take your product at any time and turn it in their own product without prior notification. And that's on top of "we can change anything, we can cut out your access at any time" etc. So yeah, do you really expect anything from these companies? Don't make your product rely on them.
Re: Tell HN: Instagram's API has broken, support tickets ignored, status page green
#56I really hope more users discover Pixelfed. As a developer, it was so easy to work with (99% people of the time just treat it like the Mastodon API).
I'm hoping that someone makes a Pixelfed-alike with a sane stack like Elixir or Go. The installation guide is just a bit too long and faffy for me right now.
Re: Tell HN: Instagram's API has broken, support tickets ignored, status page green
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
You need to keep using the tokens for them to remain valid. Have a daily job that fetches the users basic profile info like /accounts/me to keep them valid
I'm building an integration that will use a long lived token once a month. In your experience will a long lived token expiry if not used for a month? How long do they remain valid until expiring from not being used?
About three months for long lived tokens in my experience. My recommendation would be to use them weekly.
Re: Tell HN: Instagram's API has broken, support tickets ignored, status page green
#58There is nothing more frustrating than a status page that lies about the state of an API. Feels like insult + injury. I'd rather they not even have a status page!
Re: Tell HN: Instagram's API has broken, support tickets ignored, status page green
#59There is nothing more frustrating than a status page that lies about the state of an API. Feels like insult + injury. I'd rather they not even have a status page!
Unfortunately almost all status pages are for gaslighting purposes when things get really bad.
Easier to tell a developer they’re crazy and their code was wrong than to admit to downtime and violate any SLAs.
Re: Tell HN: Instagram's API has broken, support tickets ignored, status page green
#60Status page seems updated now.