Twitter will discontinue offering free access to the Twitter API starting February 9 and will launch a paid version, the Elon Musk-owned microblogging website said as it looks for more avenues to monetize the platform.
In a series of tweets, Twitter Developer account said the firm will be ending support for both v1.1 and v2 of its Twitter API. The move follows Twitter abruptly changed the terms of its API in recent weeks that was used by many popular Twitter clients such as Tweetbot and Twitterrific. Most third-party Twitter apps have shut down their mobile apps.
Twitter data are among the world’s most powerful data sets. We’re committed to enabling fast & comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us,” Twitter Dev account said Thursday.
Scores of developers use Twitter’s API to interact with the social network. The company has had a strange relationship with developers since inception. But the relationship largely worked because third-party firms were often the ones shipping new products and features for Twitter and Twitter did not attempt to monetize the API.
Under Musk’s helm, Twitter is scrambling to control how users around the globe access the platform as it broadens its attempts to monetize the service.
Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion in late October. He took a loan of about $12.5 billion to finance the deal. To keep Twitter alive, a service that is not profitable, Musk has to pay an additional $1.5 billion a year in interest alone. So naturally, Musk is pushing to make Twitter more self-sustainable.
Twitter has revamped — and made more expensive — its subscription service and tweaked how tweets appear on a user’s timeline to make the platform more engaging, lucrative and an attractive destination for an otherwise increasingly dwindling advertiser base.
“Over the years, hundreds of millions of people have sent over a trillion Tweets, with billions more every week,” Twitter Dev account said.