Twitter has caused developers confusion by shutting down its old free API, which has affected many apps and websites on the web.
Earlier this year, Twitter announced changes to its API and introduced a new paid layer, including a write-only free plan with many limitations. However, the new free API only provides 1,500 post requests per month and login with Twitter, whereas developers must pay $100 monthly to get 50,000 and 10,000 read requests monthly. Those requiring more than that must purchase the Enterprise API for $42,000 monthly.
Many apps have been affected, including Substack, Jetpack Social, Echobox, Flipboard, and Social Bearing. Even developers willing to pay for the new API face problems as Twitter has cut off access to the old API without releasing access to the new paid enterprise API.
Twitter has been trying to monetize the platform since Elon Musk bought it. Twitter has increased the price of its Blue subscriptions and now offers blue badges to paying users, and also limits the reach of tweets from non-Blue subscribers. Despite these changes, the company is losing money and many big advertisers due to controversial changes.
Furthermore, Twitter continues to lay off key engineers and executives and faces constant outages, serious bugs, and security breaches.
Making developers pay high prices for Twitter’s API will unlikely save the company. It seems that Twitter needs to rethink its strategy to improve its revenue and user experience.
