Twitter has announced that free access to its API, which powers popular services like TweetDelete and bots that send users data prompts in real time, will be discontinued as of February 9th. This means that a slew of Twitter analytics apps, management tools, schedulers, automated updates, and other key information and insight tools will soon cease to function.
The announcement follows Twitter’s recent API change, which cut off a slew of Twitter posting tools, ostensibly to prevent users from accessing the platform via a third-party UI.
Elon Musk’s decision is his latest attempt to increase revenue since acquiring the company last year. However, the announcement sparked a firestorm of criticism against Twitter, with protests from small software firms that had built products based on the assumption that Twitter’s API would remain free.
Third-party services that use the Twitter API will instead have to use the company’s basic paid tier, according to the company. Meanwhile, it is assumed that Twitter is introducing charges in order to generate as much revenue as possible in any way possible, so Twitter is charging for all of these apps and tools.
It is one of the methods Twitter is using to combat bots. One of the reasons Elon Musk initially refused to follow up on Twitter’s acquisition was because Twitter refused to inform him of the exact number of bots on Twitter.
Since the acquisition clicked, Elon Musk made it his personal mission to eradicate these bots. To that end, Musk has taken some drastic measures to eliminate bots, some of which are having an effect, but Musk has also admitted that such efforts are reducing overall platform engagement.
The sources for this piece include an article in Axios.
