The IT Nerd

Last week, Twitter caused an uproar over killing free access to their API. That in turn caused developers to flee the platform. That takes us to today where in another U-Turn of sorts, Elon said this:

Here’s the problem with this. A “light, write-only API for bots providing good content that is free” isn’t going to cut it for bots that need more access that that. And what stops Elon from moving the goalposts and deciding what is “good content” and what isn’t for example? I’m sorry, this isn’t good enough Elon. But what it does highlight is the blowback from killing free API access must have been strong enough that Elon felt he had to respond. Or the implications of having developers flee the platform en masse had the same effect. Either way, this is turning out to be another one of those negative situations that Elon has created and is unable to clean up the resulting mess.

Meanwhile in another attempt to collect revenue, Twitter will charge businesses $1000 a month to keep their gold verification checkmark:

Wow, Elon has some balls to try this stunt. I am guessing that he’s counting on the fact that businesses will pay for this in order to stand out from the crowd. And that $1000 a month is a rounding error to major companies. But I question if he’ll get as many takers as he thinks he will. Especially now that this information has leaked to the public. And this will add to his issues and highlight the fact that he is desperate to make cash by any means necessary.

This entry was posted on February 6, 2023 at 10:16 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.