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Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

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Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#51

Post by toyg »

jusben1369 wrote: post #15

Funnily enough I wonder if they would have gotten more flack if they had just auctioned off the 100,000 licenses and see what the market would handle? I suspect they may have gotten more than $20 each and there would be less complaining as it's a totally transparent process.

That's what I said in comments on the page -- they could have gone for a mix of eBay and Humble Indie Bundle: offer what you want, and the best 100.000 get in.

Tweetbot is currently 2nd in the Top Paid and Top Grossing store charts, behind only OSX Mountain Lion. Those $1.4m will be in the bank in a few days. People didn't balk at the price one bit; I thought about it for a few minutes, and then went f#ck it, it's the only program good enough to make me tolerate Twitter, and devs gotta eat. I suspect for some power user, $50 or even $100 would have been fair game.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#52

Post by brown9-2 »

GavinB wrote: post #40
danilocampos wrote: post #35

Why is it $20? Because it's worth that much. I didn't even give it any thought – I just hit the purchase button the moment I read I could. They shouldn't have written this with the sheepish, question-marked headline. They don't need to apologize or feel bashful, though I get why they would. It's a great desktop app. It costs what it costs. Anyone who doesn't like that is just leaving more tokens for the rest of us.

I interpreted this as largely a protest in the hopes of getting Twitter's token policy changed. It seems very odd that they can get 100,000 tokens for free but can't pay for more.

I think it's likely that Twitter is willing to sell them more, but the price is too extreme for TapBots.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#53

Post by dpearson »

comex wrote: post #50
zupreme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, and other actions like it, are only going to drive more people to the underground bot/warez economy wherein terms of use and official API channels don't apply. unfortunately in that world many of the tools also compromise user security as well. Unless Twitter, and other widely adopted platform providers, find a balance between corporate interests and supporting users interacting with their services in the ways…

Except that there's no reason it has to be underground. For a long time, instant messaging services tried to block third party clients, but I've never heard of them trying to take legal action. The Twitter TOS claims that "you have to use the Twitter API if you want to reproduce, modify, create derivative works", but that's copyright language, and Twitter does not own the copyright to tweets; only individual tweeters…

Of course, Twitter can prevent the use of any of their trademarks, making branding difficult, to say the least. Sure, you could make an unofficial Twitter client without any problems, but Twitter might be able to take legal action if you state anywhere that it's a "Twitter client."

Plus, these cat-and-mouse games require a user base that is fairly quick to update; if Twitter blocks one avenue (and they will try desperately to do so if one of these clients gains a decent number of users), an update for the client is likely necessary. I would think the easier way would be for users to get their own API keys and secrets and enter them into the app.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#54

Post by Samuel_Michon »

brown9-2 wrote: post #52
GavinB wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interpreted this as largely a protest in the hopes of getting Twitter's token policy changed. It seems very odd that they can get 100,000 tokens for free but can't pay for more.

I think it's likely that Twitter is willing to sell them more, but the price is too extreme for TapBots.

I doubt it. Even if Twitter would receive $100 per token, the total would still be peanuts for Twitter. 100,000 tokens × $100 = $10 million.

Even if every single Mac user would pay Twitter a one time fee of $100 to use a third party Twitter client, that would result in just $5 billion.

I think Twitter is betting they can earn more by controlling the experience.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#55

Post by comex »

dpearson wrote: post #53
comex wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that there's no reason it has to be underground. For a long time, instant messaging services tried to block third party clients, but I've never heard of them trying to take legal action. The Twitter TOS claims that "you have to use the Twitter API if you want to reproduce, modify, create derivative works", but that's copyright language, and Twitter does not own the copyright to tweets; only individual tweeters…

Of course, Twitter can prevent the use of any of their trademarks, making branding difficult, to say the least. Sure, you could make an unofficial Twitter client without any problems, but Twitter might be able to take legal action if you state anywhere that it's a "Twitter client." Plus, these cat-and-mouse games require a user base that is fairly quick to update; if Twitter blocks one avenue (and they will try despe…

Well, that would be straight-up tortious interference. But I feel like now that clients have moved on to higher-level protocols, and exist on so many platforms, Twitter would have a hard time blocking use of API keys extracted from the official apps. If I have time, I'll retrieve them myself...

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#56

Post by dpearson »

comex wrote: post #55
dpearson wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, Twitter can prevent the use of any of their trademarks, making branding difficult, to say the least. Sure, you could make an unofficial Twitter client without any problems, but Twitter might be able to take legal action if you state anywhere that it's a "Twitter client." Plus, these cat-and-mouse games require a user base that is fairly quick to update; if Twitter blocks one avenue (and they will try despe…

Well, that would be straight-up tortious interference. But I feel like now that clients have moved on to higher-level protocols, and exist on so many platforms, Twitter would have a hard time blocking use of API keys extracted from the official apps. If I have time, I'll retrieve them myself...

Technically, if those keys could be extracted (I'm no expert on that), that would be the easier option, as Twitter cannot really afford to revoke those without massive headaches on their end. You likely couldn't distribute those keys, but I have no idea if automatic extraction at install time would be fair game on a large scale.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#57

Post by comex »

dpearson wrote: post #56
comex wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that would be straight-up tortious interference. But I feel like now that clients have moved on to higher-level protocols, and exist on so many platforms, Twitter would have a hard time blocking use of API keys extracted from the official apps. If I have time, I'll retrieve them myself...

Technically, if those keys could be extracted (I'm no expert on that), that would be the easier option, as Twitter cannot really afford to revoke those without massive headaches on their end. You likely couldn't distribute those keys, but I have no idea if automatic extraction at install time would be fair game on a large scale.

Actually, keys are not copyrightable, so the only obstacle I know of to distributing them is the DMCA - which I think doesn't apply here, since the key does not circumvent an access or copy control measure (it doesn't bypass the requirement to log in or anything like that, and Twitter.app has no technical measures to prevent you from copying tweets).

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#58

Post by notatoad »

unreal37 wrote: post #38

I thought the 100,000 limit was just the limit for free tokens - "you have to talk to us". I mean, if Twitter is willing to sell tokens at $2 each, then Tapbot can sell this app forever giving Twitter their cut. I also find it ironic that the app maker has to ask beta testers to revoke access to free up tokens for others.

>I thought the 100,000 limit was just the limit for free tokens - "you have to talk to us".

That's what twitter's API announcement says. It seems really disrespectful of tapbot to be unwilling to pay twitter anything when they're charging their users $20. If this is the app maker's attitude toward the service they are building their business on top of, i can understand why twitter wants to crack down on their API consumers.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#59

Post by andrewmunsell »

masklinn wrote: post #18
andrewmunsell wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a limit over 100k (2x their current user base) IIRC, since they already have 100k+ users on Tweetbot.

Tokens are per-application. So they do not have "a limit over 100k", they have a limit of 100k on "Tweetbot for Mac". Which is a completely separate limit than the one for Tweetbot on iOS.

In a blog post they said, "Our user cap for Tweetbot for Mac is also large and we don’t expect any problems given the smaller market", which sounds like it's the double-user cap, not 100k.

Re: Why is Tweetbot for Mac $20?

#60

Post by dpearson »

comex wrote: post #57
dpearson wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, if those keys could be extracted (I'm no expert on that), that would be the easier option, as Twitter cannot really afford to revoke those without massive headaches on their end. You likely couldn't distribute those keys, but I have no idea if automatic extraction at install time would be fair game on a large scale.

Actually, keys are not copyrightable, so the only obstacle I know of to distributing them is the DMCA - which I think doesn't apply here, since the key does not circumvent an access or copy control measure (it doesn't bypass the requirement to log in or anything like that, and Twitter.app has no technical measures to prevent you from copying tweets).

My bad with the copyright, although it looks like Twitter leaves themselves nice leeway to kill at least your personal account for it, as it is forbidden to "access or search..the Services by any means other than through our currently available, published interfaces that are provided by Twitter (and only pursuant to those terms and conditions)"[1], which I would read to exclude the (slightly-modified, I believe) access Twitter's own apps get.

[1]: https://twitter.com/tos, Section 8

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