Twitter continue with him trickle of measures aimed at raising their incomeeven if they are deeply unpopular. This is the case of the last one that he has announced: the end of free use of your API. As of February 9, all the services and tools that currently use this API free of charge and that want or need to continue using it will have to pay for it, or simply stop providing the service they provide thanks to it. This was communicated by the company through a thread published on the Twitter Developer account:
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?
— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) February 2, 2023
From within just a week, therefore, the company will block non-paying developers from accessing version 1.1 of its APIalready considered legacy, and the current one, the V2. For now there is no more information about the amount that the network will charge for using its APIs. It is only known that there will be a basic payment plan, but it is unknown what type of access it will offer. All when there is barely a week left for the change to take place.
This step follows the abrupt changes in the terms of use of said API in recent weeks, after the company suspended access to such popular and relevant apps in its history as Tweetbot and Twitterrific. As a result, many third-party Twitter apps have stopped working and have removed their mobile apps from the iOS and Android app stores. In some cases, as has happened with the creators of Tweetbot, the companies that developed those apps have changed their focus to launch apps for Mastodon and other networks, or are considering doing so in the future.
Meanwhile, confusion and uncertainty is growing among developers using the Twitter API in numerous projects. Also among its users. At present there are thousands of developers who use the Twitter API for, for example, the development of informative bots that publish information in other networks, and in systems related to weather information and other types of data.
In many cases, the free Twitter API has served for the development of projects created as a hobby, which will probably end up not working. It is more than likely that the same will happen with bots that automatically post tweets on other networks, such as the aforementioned Mastodon.
On the other hand, the academic sector, and that dedicated to research, will be greatly affected by this measure. For now, Twitter has not specified whether the announcement to end the free use of its API, on which hundreds of thousands of projects in both sectors depend, also affects researchers and education.
Among the ongoing investigations there are many in sectors such as the study of hate speech and online abuse. In addition, universities often use Twitter to study human behavior in different parts of the world based on what its inhabitants say and share on social networks. Not having free access to the Twitter API will also raise many complications for companies and organizations working to detect the spread of fake news and misinformation.
Twitter’s relationship with developers building products off of its API has always been a complicated one. But for better or worse, that relationship worked, and there have been numerous services and tools that have been born from the Twitter API since its arrival.
Despite several initial rebuffs, on the other hand, Twitter had been working for years to improve the relationship with developers by launching various programs and actions, which has meant that the developer ecosystem around its API was still alive.
This has all been blown up ever since Musk bought the company, and API pay-as-you-go may be the last nail in the community’s coffin. Meanwhile, Twitter continues to increase control over how Twitter users access the network and trying to increase their revenue. And developers will probably change the social network with which to work and create their tools.
