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If ads were really the issue, all he had to do is add the ads in the API. Instead, he caused free advertising for Tapbot's upcoming Mastodon client and pissed

If ads were really the issue, all he had to do is add the ads in the API. Instead, he caused free advertising for Tapbot's upcoming Mastodon client and pissed off power users who produce the free content the site relies on to sell ads. Thirdparty apps wouldn't exist if the official app was good enough.

cbeach 4y ago
Ad brokers and their clients are very sensitive about how their ads are displayed, and which content they appear next to. To allow arbitrary third party apps to decide this would not be a sensible business decision by Twitter.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  Twitter still controls the API: if there's content they don't want to appear next to ads, then can choose not to serve it.
  - cbeach 4y ago
    Third party apps decide how content is displayed, regardless of what comes out of the Twitter API. That's the problem for Twitter, from a business point of view.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      Is that much of a problem? Twitter's ad units aren't arbitrary. They sell things that look very much like tweets. It seems like it would be pretty easy for Twitter to insist that things get rendered the way they want or else. They could even provide library code for popular platforms to do that, as they have that already written.
      - cbeach 4y ago
        I've seen ads on Twitter that render in a more sophisticated way than tweets. For example, they include buttons. Third party apps could implement this kind of thing, for sure. However, on an ongoing basis, Twitter would need to ensure that all third party apps had the latest ad presentation logic, and that they worked correctly, and none of the third party apps used sneaky tricks to hide the ads. After all, there's no benefit to the developers of the third-party app in hosting ads that benefit Twitter. It would quite costly and fiddly for Twitter to administrate this, and IMO, the benefits of a third-party app ecosystem don't really stack up from Twitter's PoV.

cbeach 4y ago

Ad brokers and their clients are very sensitive about how their ads are displayed, and which content they appear next to. To allow arbitrary third party apps to decide this would not be a sensible business decision by Twitter.

sangnoir 4y ago
Twitter still controls the API: if there's content they don't want to appear next to ads, then can choose not to serve it.
- cbeach 4y ago
  Third party apps decide how content is displayed, regardless of what comes out of the Twitter API. That's the problem for Twitter, from a business point of view.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    Is that much of a problem? Twitter's ad units aren't arbitrary. They sell things that look very much like tweets. It seems like it would be pretty easy for Twitter to insist that things get rendered the way they want or else. They could even provide library code for popular platforms to do that, as they have that already written.
    - cbeach 4y ago
      I've seen ads on Twitter that render in a more sophisticated way than tweets. For example, they include buttons. Third party apps could implement this kind of thing, for sure. However, on an ongoing basis, Twitter would need to ensure that all third party apps had the latest ad presentation logic, and that they worked correctly, and none of the third party apps used sneaky tricks to hide the ads. After all, there's no benefit to the developers of the third-party app in hosting ads that benefit Twitter. It would quite costly and fiddly for Twitter to administrate this, and IMO, the benefits of a third-party app ecosystem don't really stack up from Twitter's PoV.