This is the end, my only friend, the end.

The end of Twitter.

Because Elon Musk is now going to make people pay to use Twitter’s API.

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

API stands for Application Programming Interface, and it’s how an external application gets access to Twitter’s data, allowing the creation of helpful bots (and bad ones), applications for viewing and collecting tweets, and much, much more.

I’ve been using the Twitter API at LGF for years, doing tasks like automatically tweeting links to new posts, embedding tweets in LGF comments, etc. And 500 API calls per month — reportedly the cheapest plan at $149 — wouldn’t even begin to cover our usage. So all those features will be going away soon, and I’ll be focusing much more intensively on Mastodon and other decentralized apps that Elon Musk can’t destroy.

I know Twitter won’t go belly up overnight, but this is where the downward slide really begins. Thousands of applications and tools people use, enjoy, and in some cases rely on for important research will simply stop working, and not many individuals will be able to afford these absurd prices.

It’s sad to watch this happening, but there will come a day when we say, “At least Twitter isn’t suffering any more.”