Cash-strapped Twitter to start charging developers for API access next week
- Thread starter JournalBot
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"data which could be in the thousands or millions per day" is incoherent. Thousands or millions of what? Didn't they teach you about units in school?
Even assuming we're talking about some kind of unit where thousands or millions is a lot, that "could be" is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting. Treating every user who accesses the Twitter API as if they're using an equivalent amount of data is absurd. A hell of a lot of them are just bots posting cat pictures.
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IncorrigibleTroll
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
Missing the ground is the essential secret of flight, after all.
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They are already charging large downloaders of data (starting entry for $149,-/month in 2017), trying to do that on free level gets you banned.
And now the problem. Twitter is funded by ad revenue. People on the free level of the API tend to use it for bots that post to Twitter more then the free level is used to extract data. Anything that gets posted to Twitter through a bot can get eyeballs on it and thus on the ad next to it (if there is an ad suitable for the tweet). So less Tweets to draw eyeballs means less ads shown so revenue goes down.
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Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.
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The death of one social media platform hasn't been the death of social media since the days that MySpace killed GeoCities rings and Facebook killed MySpace. The difference is that, this time, people will have one clear-cut event that occurred to point at as the moment in time that something else got the opening to make a play for Twitter's marketshare and the single event that prevented Twitter from being able to prevent it.
That event is, in case there's any doubt at all in anyone's minds, is Musk.
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I wonder what would happen if Twitter goes out of business and completely shuts down the platform? I guess some wealthy celebrities who make millions from tweeting would take a hit to their wallets but I doubt the average person would care much
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AmanoJyaku
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
I believe the unit is supposed to be monetary, like dollars.
Except, Twitter didn't need to charge for it before. Their entire financial situation changed Oct 2022, but I can't put my finger on why...
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uesc_marathon
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Look on the bright side, since when does Apartheid Senpai follow through on things he promises?
Notice there's no new CEO yet.
Notice there's no new CEO yet.
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"This is a feature that generous third parties have used to make this site immeasurably more valuable, beloved, and sticky. They're constantly working on reasons human beings will keep scrolling and see more and more of the ads that produce our revenue."
"How many dollars does it extract from every person who develops with it?"
"Well, there's a free tier for this feature that constantly adds value to the platform, drives engagement, and--"
"KILL IT."
"How many dollars does it extract from every person who develops with it?"
"Well, there's a free tier for this feature that constantly adds value to the platform, drives engagement, and--"
"KILL IT."
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"$0.69 per call. Hurr, hurr, hurr, S3XY! Very stable manchild genius am I!"
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AmanoJyaku
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
Wrong.
Also wrong.
Hilariously wrong.
Three strikes, you're outta here!
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Seriously, 44 Billion to kill a platform is amazing when you think about it. Especially when the person who paid for it was using it to manipulate over inflated stock prices, too.
Just absolutely amazing.
Just absolutely amazing.
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delayed comment from thanksgiving dinner, or what are you on about?
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Even more fun: it's less than worthless - it's actively toxic.
Imagine for a moment you were asked to take Twitter, absolutely free! It comes with whatever assets and debts it currently possesses, you get it all! Do you take it?
With a potential loss of $7B just this year, and that estimate coming from someone who ostensibly would have an interest in understating those figures, you'd have to be a complete moron to take it, even completely free. There's just no way to ever overcome that debt burden, and we WILL see Twitter go bankrupt sooner than later.
Twitter will never overcome this mountain - such losses would seriously injure even massive players like Facebook/Meta, where a bonus $7B cost in 2022 would've taken a full 1/3 of their entire 2022 net income. I still peg a chapter 11 coming out for Twitter within the next few months, though even if the restructuring succeeds, I doubt Elon will like what this does to his access to capital and his overall wealth going forward.
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Okay, now we can really say it is dying. We could before too, but now we can say it again. I should've stocked more popcorn.
This would've been a significant sign of trouble, a strong hint that something was going wrong at Twitter, like an ominous whiff of smoke in a dry forest, if it wasn't for the humongousforest dumpster fire that has been visible for months, occasionally belching green smoke as another can of chemical waste went off.
This would've been a significant sign of trouble, a strong hint that something was going wrong at Twitter, like an ominous whiff of smoke in a dry forest, if it wasn't for the humongous
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'It comes with whatever assets and debts it currently possesses' AND all the pending lawsuits against it.
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If nobody posts on a social network and nobody tries to read it, does it still
Yes. Yes it does...
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Aww, and here you were so excited for "free speech". Turns out it's not so free after all.Damn, this sucks!
Am hoping for a teir based package (<=100000 followers $x.xx) or I looks like I will have to shut down my memebot... just when it was picking up
By the way, how'd that "red wave" go?
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I remember people 10 years ago comparing Musk to our generation's Edison. I guess at least he's just killing a website and not electrocuting stray dogs now that he's in his evil villain stage.
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What you are seeing is Elon Musk in pure mode without all the other handlers and babysitters to protect the company from self destruction.
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He's aligning with the only group that didn't react negatively when they found out he tried to trade a horse for a handjob.
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I for one look forward to the dead corpse of Twitter being parted out, with some random brand holder buying the name and logo. Next move is to start churning out entirely random Chinese tat with cheaply licensed Twitter logo on it, entirely without quality control.
Twitter branded water bottles that leach plasticisers into your water, Twitter branded power banks that spontaneously combust, a Twitter branded Flappy Birds clone that has you driving a 'Not-A-Tesla' between dumpsterfires, with the car actively trying to steer into them, Twitter branded kitchen sinks specially shaped so your water spends months circling the drain, the possibilities are endless.
Twitter branded water bottles that leach plasticisers into your water, Twitter branded power banks that spontaneously combust, a Twitter branded Flappy Birds clone that has you driving a 'Not-A-Tesla' between dumpsterfires, with the car actively trying to steer into them, Twitter branded kitchen sinks specially shaped so your water spends months circling the drain, the possibilities are endless.
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Another day, another fuckwitted decision by lonE skuM. Sheer ineptitude.
Seriously, when is someone going to roll out a simple, new micro-blogging service and leave skuM to twist and deal with his inevitable bankruptcy?
Hire a bunch of ex-Twitter engineers/admins/other misc. pros, build out the platform and the requisite moderation and advertising infrastructure/backend (moderation being the most important and challenging). 4-6 months to launch, tops.
Seriously, when is someone going to roll out a simple, new micro-blogging service and leave skuM to twist and deal with his inevitable bankruptcy?
Hire a bunch of ex-Twitter engineers/admins/other misc. pros, build out the platform and the requisite moderation and advertising infrastructure/backend (moderation being the most important and challenging). 4-6 months to launch, tops.
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This kind of statement always just rubs me as, "Oh, I'm so much better than everyone else. I don't follow celebrities."
You follow and listen to what other people, who are famous in your circles, say and do as well. You just pretend you're above the others because you don't follow celebrities.
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Twitter's stuck in a classic negative feedback loop: they're losing users and advertisers which is leading to decreasing ad revenue. To offset the lost revenue, they shut down features to cut costs. However some percentage of users will leave because they like these features, and the downward spiral continues.
Musk had better have a few tricks up his sleeve, or Twitter's going to become a ghost town or populated solely by alt-reich assholes and turn into Parler 2.0 in a few months. Personally speaking, I used to see a ton of interesting recommended content in my feed pre-takeover. Now all I see are sporadic tweets from the people that I'm following and not a whole lot else.
Musk had better have a few tricks up his sleeve, or Twitter's going to become a ghost town or populated solely by alt-reich assholes and turn into Parler 2.0 in a few months. Personally speaking, I used to see a ton of interesting recommended content in my feed pre-takeover. Now all I see are sporadic tweets from the people that I'm following and not a whole lot else.
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AmanoJyaku
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
"Logging in to Twitter incurs a cost for data, so we are now charging $0.05 per character transmitted.
Please, make as many mistakes as you can when entering your username and password."
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We make our money from people visiting twitter. So let's charge the people who create content and reasons for people to visit so that less people will want to visit!
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