Twitter to Charge for API
Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead.
[…]
We’ll be back with more details on what you can expect next week.
At present, I would pay a reasonable fee to keep using Twitter with NetNewsWire and IFTTT. That may change if the people I follow continue to leave the platform. And I think this may be shortsighted in that a free API encourages people to do things that make the platform more valuable.
As with other recent Twitter changes, it’s rude to announce this with so little notice—and no details.
As usual for the new Twitter, there are no details about what this means and no coordination among what is left of its teams — its developer site proudly still says it permits “free access”.
Although third-party clients have been gone for awhile, this will most likely kill automated posting tools. That’s been used for years on this site and it’s just not worth the money to pay for API access. It’s also a pretty bold move for Twitter to think that publications, especially smaller ones, should pay to generate content for their site even if it ultimately brings eyeballs to the destination sites. In addition to that, tools that allow you to delete your tweets or create things outside of simple posting will also go away.
Here comes the punchline: one day Twitter emailed me to say that my Twitter Blue account was being discontinued, but I would soon have the opportunity to pay for an exciting new version of Twitter Blue.
Then Twitter emailed me inviting me to roll over my credit card so as to become a member of the new Twitter Blue. Which made me wonder: do I continue to go by the principle of paying for software I use, even when I disapprove of the direction in which a new owner is taking the platform? Or do I register my dislike of that direction by refusing to pay, even if it accelerates the death of the platform? (Whereas I was still hoping for the platform to survive and right itself, no pun intended.)
In the end, and I know I’ll lose many of you here, I decided to keep paying. And now the promised punchline: Twitter was unable to accept my credit card, and the subscription failed.
Previously:
Update (2023-02-03): Ged Maheux:
Just amazing how far Musk has moved the goal posts so that giving Twitter devs a single week’s notice before their app/service is rendered inoperable is now considered an “improvement”. 🤬
Yeah, free API is being abused badly right now by bot scammers & opinion manipulators. There’s no verification process or cost, so easy to spin up 100k bots to do bad things.
Just ~$100/month for API access with ID verification will clean things up greatly.
If that’s the real motiviation, they should make the read-only parts of the API free.
Musk is teaching a mastery-level class in how not to manage relationships with third-party developers.
Twitter blocking Movetodon over unspecified violations[…]
Update (2023-02-13): Twitter Dev (last week):
We’re excited to announce an extension of the current free Twitter API access through February 13.
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Paid basic access that offers low level of API usage, and access to Ads API for a $100 monthly fee.
A new form of free access will be introduced as this is extremely important to our ecosystem – limited to Tweet creation of up to 1,500 Tweets per month for a single authenticated user token, including Login with Twitter.
There has been an immense amount of enthusiasm for the upcoming changes with Twitter API. As part of our efforts to create an optimal experience for the developer community, we will be delaying the launch of our new API platform by a few more days.
They still haven’t said anything about read access.
A lot of customers have asked about the future of Twitter support in Feedbin. Even with today’s update there’s still not enough information to make a decision.
Feedbin’s priority is to keep the stuff that you subscribe to up-to-date, so the plan is to continue to use the API. However, it also depends on what the price ends up being[…]
6 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
This is seriously stupid on Twitter's part.
Update: NNW to remove Twitter integration (news on their blog via rss).
I guess this is the end of the my final use of anything connected to twitter, the thread reader app.
On the other hand, good way to get rid of spammy bots I guess.
I am charmed how Michael labels the ongoing abusive behavior by the new tyrant, "rude".
This isn't just a masterclass in how to alienate developers. It's going to be a MBA course example in what not to do in tech for decades to come.
My life has been better since I stopped using Twitter once they killed third party apps. I would've paid extra to keep using them, but now I don't think I would.