Your favorite third-party Twitter app might soon start charging you for access
There are various websites and services that offer developers free access to its APIs. This essentially allows developers to create their own apps and services while integrating some of the features of the other service.
A good example was Twitter, where developers created third-party apps that some have found to be more useful and powerful compared to the default Twitter app, but all of that is expected to change in a huge way soon.
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
This is because Twitter has announced that they will no longer be providing free access to the Twitter API. Instead, the company will be introducing a new basic tier that is paid. While this might not affect users who are using the original Twitter app, it could be bad news for third-party developers and users who rely on these apps.
This is because if the app was already free, developers being charged to access the Twitter API will probably start charging its users since we imagine that no company will be eating those fees themselves. Twitter had previously stopped third-party apps from accessing its API, but now it looks like it might have been part of a move to start developers for it.
At this point it is unclear how developers will react to this new paid “basic tier”, but we wouldn’t be surprised if some of them either stop their work on their apps, or start charging users for it.