It feels like just yesterday when Elon Musk successfully closed the deal on the acquisition of Twitter and immediately instituted significant changes by dismissing key leaders at the firm. Since then, throughout the course of the previous several months, Twitter has been undergoing numerous changes, some of which have caused users and developers to express dissatisfaction. Now, Twitter is once again implementing yet another significant shift by removing free access to its application programming interface (API) and replacing it with a system that will begin charging users and developers the next week.
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 Dev (@TwitterDev) February 2, 2023
The announcement was made on the official Twitter Dev account late in the evening of February 1, and it said that beginning on February 9, the firm will no longer provide free access to version 1.1 and version 2 of Twitter’s application programming interfaces (APIs). It said that beginning on February 9, it will provide a paid basic tier. This indicates that beginning at that time, those who want access would be required to pay some kind of price. You can probably guess that the community and the devs were quick to respond, and the result was a storm of critical comments. Others were more outraged by the short notice than they were about the fact that Twitter will begin charging for API access. Many people felt that it was improper for Twitter to begin charging for API access.
This modification comes on the heels of a recent update to the platform’s developer agreement, which essentially put an end to and prohibited the use of third-party Twitter clients. Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, has announced intentions to reduce the number of advertisements that are shown on the network, in addition to establishing a premium service called Twitter Blue, which would eliminate all advertisements from the standard Twitter experience. In addition, Twitter is now enabling users whose accounts have been suspended in the past to submit an appeal for reinstatement of their accounts.
