Per week after Twitter made the announcement about shutting down free access to the API, the corporate stated in the present day that it’ll cost $100 per thirty days for the essential tier of API. This can get builders entry to a “low degree of API utilization” — with out specifying what that precisely means — and the Advertisements API.
The corporate had deliberate to close down free entry to its API on February 9, and now it has prolonged this deadline to February 13. However with no particulars obtainable round API pricing restructuring and entry ranges, this extension appears symbolic as builders gained’t be capable to plan their modifications.
Final week’s announcement drew loads of criticism from builders — especially folks who make fun of bots posting info or footage. Later, Elon Musk said that the corporate will present a free API to bots posting “good” content material. Within the latest string of bulletins, Twitter stated that it’ll present a lightweight write-only API to such bot builders with a restrict of posting 1,500 tweets per thirty days (or two tweets per hour).
Twitter additionally added that it’ll depreciate premium API, which was a part of v1.1, on February 13. Whereas the corporate stated builders can apply for enterprise entry, it’s not clear if of us subscribed to elevated entry with API v2 might be affected.
Whereas the brand new announcement units the bottom for primary API tiers and bots, there may be loads of uncertainty round educational analysis. Underneath the earlier administration, the corporate offered particular entry to researchers with API v2. Nevertheless, there isn’t any info that entry might be taken away because the social community discontinues free API tiers. Researchers depend on this knowledge to sign developments round hate speech or misinformation on the platform. So it’s important that these researchers have permission to entry the info to look at issues of safety on Twitter.
Other than this, individuals have additionally identified that engineers constructing options for pure disasters like earthquakes additionally depend on Twitter API. So discontinuing the free tier will have an effect on these options.
Making API entry paid is Musk’s newest transfer to convey more cash into Twitter. The corporate has expanded Twitter Blue to 15 countries now. In line with current reports, solely 180,000 individuals have signed up for that within the US. The Information famous that at this fee, Twitter is about to make solely $27.8 million this 12 months from subscriptions.
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