Twitter is killing free API access.

Will most devs pay for access? No thanks.

If what happened to 3rd party clients proves true, I have a feeling many devs will move their efforts to the Fediverse.

https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1621026986784337922

Twitter Dev on Twitter

“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

Killing free API access is an incredibly terrible business decision from Twitter.

1. It was once free
2. It’s main competitor (Mastodon) doesn’t just offer a free API, it’s open source
3. It’s also competing with ActivtyPub

Elon Musk is motivating the Fediverse ecosystem!

What Elon Musk doesn’t realize is that there’s a whole lot of devs who used Twitter’s API, not because of the network effect, but because it was a free API to build neat products upon.

Now you’ve removed the biggest motivation for actually using that API.

@atomicpoet tbh, he removed the network effect for the rest of us too.