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Did the developer have any special agreement or contract with Twitter that the API would always be available? If not it sounds like an unacceptable professional

by retox 4y ago

Did the developer have any special agreement or contract with Twitter that the API would always be available? If not it sounds like an unacceptable professional risk to base your livelihood on the whims of another entity.

george_perez 4y ago
Not sure about special agreements or contracts, but Tweetbot along with other high-profile third-party apps (like Twitterrific) had way, way more API tokens available because of their size when Twitter started restricting the number of API tokens an app could have assigned for the lifetime of the app. API tokens for new apps were way more limited, around 10,000 I believe. Tweetbot and Twitterrific, while they never disclosed how many tokens they were given as legacy apps, were still to this day accepting new users, so the number seems to be way more than 10,000. And they had access to a less limited API (request-wise) to make their app work better without constant rate limiting nags.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
braingenious 4y ago
Watching some sad failed poster-bro turned forced admin setting fire to the functionality of his dumb website “Hmm… it is actually the people that have created value for the site by driving engagement that are the true idiots”
wpietri 4y ago
And if they had a contract, so what? Musk famously does not care about contracts. Note that the only reason he ended up buying Twitter is that Deleware's corporate courts really don't fuck around and were likely going to force him to buy it pronto despite his attempts to wriggle out. But he'll happily screw over lesser people, as he's doing with various vendors, like Twitter's landlords: https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-landlord-sues-company-unpaid-rent-san-francisco-office-musk-2023-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-landlord-sues-compan... Explain to me how a small software vendor, even with the best contract in the world, is going to force Musk to turn back on their access in a timely enough fashion that they'll still have a business left? And be able to do it for a modest enough amount of money that the ISV will still be turning a profit?
- bruce511 4y ago
  That wasn't the point of the previous post. Clearly if they did have a contract there would be recourses to take, and yes that won't stop Elon being Elon. The point was that when you build on top of someone else's platform, [1], then you are beholden to their whims. This is a substantial business risk, which has been happening since forever. I sympethize with Tweetbot et al, but this day has been inevitable for some time. They are not the first to suffer this fate in tech, and they won't be the last. [1] I'll add, without paying - ie not being an actual "customer".
  - Flockster 4y ago
    The thing is, I can't think of a company, with even a 1/10 the userbase that did not at least announce turning of such a service. These changes impact at the very least the users of Twitter itself. And given the history of Twitter, one can argue that the success was in part due to these third party clients.
  - watwut 4y ago
    Afaik they did actually paid some money to twitter.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    It opened with "Did the developer have any special agreement or contract", so yes, I think that was the point of the post. I agree that building on other people's platforms is dangerous, but that's true regardless of the contract you have, because contracts only matter to the extent that you can afford to enforce them.

by retox 4y ago

george_perez 4y ago

Not sure about special agreements or contracts, but Tweetbot along with other high-profile third-party apps (like Twitterrific) had way, way more API tokens available because of their size when Twitter started restricting the number of API tokens an app could have assigned for the lifetime of the app. API tokens for new apps were way more limited, around 10,000 I believe. Tweetbot and Twitterrific, while they never disclosed how many tokens they were given as legacy apps, were still to this day accepting new users, so the number seems to be way more than 10,000. And they had access to a less limited API (request-wise) to make their app work better without constant rate limiting nags.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

braingenious 4y ago

Watching some sad failed poster-bro turned forced admin setting fire to the functionality of his dumb website “Hmm… it is actually the people that have created value for the site by driving engagement that are the true idiots”

wpietri 4y ago

And if they had a contract, so what? Musk famously does not care about contracts. Note that the only reason he ended up buying Twitter is that Deleware's corporate courts really don't fuck around and were likely going to force him to buy it pronto despite his attempts to wriggle out. But he'll happily screw over lesser people, as he's doing with various vendors, like Twitter's landlords: https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-landlord-sues-company-unpaid-rent-san-francisco-office-musk-2023-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-landlord-sues-compan... Explain to me how a small software vendor, even with the best contract in the world, is going to force Musk to turn back on their access in a timely enough fashion that they'll still have a business left? And be able to do it for a modest enough amount of money that the ISV will still be turning a profit?

bruce511 4y ago
That wasn't the point of the previous post. Clearly if they did have a contract there would be recourses to take, and yes that won't stop Elon being Elon. The point was that when you build on top of someone else's platform, [1], then you are beholden to their whims. This is a substantial business risk, which has been happening since forever. I sympethize with Tweetbot et al, but this day has been inevitable for some time. They are not the first to suffer this fate in tech, and they won't be the last. [1] I'll add, without paying - ie not being an actual "customer".
- Flockster 4y ago
  The thing is, I can't think of a company, with even a 1/10 the userbase that did not at least announce turning of such a service. These changes impact at the very least the users of Twitter itself. And given the history of Twitter, one can argue that the success was in part due to these third party clients.
- watwut 4y ago
  Afaik they did actually paid some money to twitter.
- wpietri 4y ago
  It opened with "Did the developer have any special agreement or contract", so yes, I think that was the point of the post. I agree that building on other people's platforms is dangerous, but that's true regardless of the contract you have, because contracts only matter to the extent that you can afford to enforce them.