Twitterrific has been discontinued(blog.iconfactory.com)
blog.iconfactory.com
Twitterrific has been discontinued
https://blog.iconfactory.com/2023/01/twitterrific-end-of-an-era/
380 comments
So they're the ones I need to punch in the face for "pull-to-refresh"? (jk)
Actually though, I absolutely hate that Chrome iOS has pull-to-refresh. I've never in my life wanted to refresh a page by pulling and instead what happens is once or twice a month I'm filling out a form or typing a post and I need to scroll up. I do it instinctively, chrome refreshes, I lose everything I just typed. Thanks Chrome
Actually though, I absolutely hate that Chrome iOS has pull-to-refresh. I've never in my life wanted to refresh a page by pulling and instead what happens is once or twice a month I'm filling out a form or typing a post and I need to scroll up. I do it instinctively, chrome refreshes, I lose everything I just typed. Thanks Chrome
Well, to be fair, pull to refresh is an adaptation of the original interaction.
It was originally "pull to load newer posts". Remember that a twitter timeline would have the newest posts at the top and the older posts below it. So when a user would return to the app, they would keep scrolling up until they reached the top. Then if they kept scrolling triggering the iOS rubber-banding behavior, it would load newer posts. Then the newer posts would be rendered above where you were in the list.
Refreshing the whole page wasn't the intended purpose.
It was originally "pull to load newer posts". Remember that a twitter timeline would have the newest posts at the top and the older posts below it. So when a user would return to the app, they would keep scrolling up until they reached the top. Then if they kept scrolling triggering the iOS rubber-banding behavior, it would load newer posts. Then the newer posts would be rendered above where you were in the list.
Refreshing the whole page wasn't the intended purpose.
Yeah, pull-to-refresh doesn't make sense on a web browser at all IMO. Its obvious, specific application is "refreshing a vertical list of entries, typically populated via a network request". This action doesn't map well to "loading a page of content".
One fundamental point of the interaction is that you're already scrolling to the top of the list because you're viewing a reverse-chronologically-sorted list of network-driven content. If, after hitting the top of the list, you keep trying to scroll up, you're already suggesting to the software that you want to see more. On a website, this implication doesn't apply. I'm just trying to get to the top of the page.
One fundamental point of the interaction is that you're already scrolling to the top of the list because you're viewing a reverse-chronologically-sorted list of network-driven content. If, after hitting the top of the list, you keep trying to scroll up, you're already suggesting to the software that you want to see more. On a website, this implication doesn't apply. I'm just trying to get to the top of the page.
What's the point of using Chrome on iOS if it is forced by Apple to be just a thin skin on top of Safari, and you don't even like the UI?
BTW, the Firefox-flavored Safari skin has a regular refresh button.
BTW, the Firefox-flavored Safari skin has a regular refresh button.
Generally people use third-party WebKit browsers on iOS for syncing tabs, history, bookmarks, etc.
Probably the main reason why people use any browser is because of the UI and features added on top of the rendering engine.
Tweetie was a great app. That was the last time I was really actually "interested" in Twitter. It was all sort of downhill for me. But I remember pull to refresh being an absolutely mind bending feature at the time. It just felt natural.
For some additional info, Twitter acquired Tweetie and turned it into the official Twitter iOS app.
I agree, but it is 2023 now, it’s not super important how Twitter was founded.
Uhhh... I mean, the events that came before are what led to where we are today, so it's pretty worthwhile to understand the history of software, tech, and humanity for that matter. This colossal breadth of tech we're using every day has been a development of centuries, and Twitter and its development is a piece of that. Dismissing that history is a disservice to our community and to our future. Yeah, where a feature came from is not of news-headline importance, but it's relevant to us and our understanding of how software and services evolve over time, with involvement from their community of users and fellow industry members.
The people in these comments espousing "history"and want to blame every bad behaviour on the new owner seem to have a very short memory.
Twitter has always given a proud middle finger to third party clients to suit its own strategy. Firehose access terminated to analytics companies after it acquired Gnip:
"...After acquiring Gnip in May of 2014, we decided to bring all data licensing activity in-house in order to better serve our customers and partners..."
When they acquired Tweetdeck in 2011, they started cutting off apps who "'mimic' products, services and experiences that Twitter itself offers"
They banned apps like UberMedia (UberTwitter), twidroyd and UberCurrent over trademarks and having the audacity to offer DM longer than 140 chars. There are dozens of more instances. They have literally never been a platform or ecosystem friendly company. Ever. They used 3rd party apps to gain traction than killed them.
How is this recent behavior any different?
Twitter has always given a proud middle finger to third party clients to suit its own strategy. Firehose access terminated to analytics companies after it acquired Gnip:
"...After acquiring Gnip in May of 2014, we decided to bring all data licensing activity in-house in order to better serve our customers and partners..."
When they acquired Tweetdeck in 2011, they started cutting off apps who "'mimic' products, services and experiences that Twitter itself offers"
They banned apps like UberMedia (UberTwitter), twidroyd and UberCurrent over trademarks and having the audacity to offer DM longer than 140 chars. There are dozens of more instances. They have literally never been a platform or ecosystem friendly company. Ever. They used 3rd party apps to gain traction than killed them.
How is this recent behavior any different?
> How is this recent behavior any different?
None of the situations you highlight involved a) zero advance warning b) a week of radio silence from Twitter c) lies from Twitter about the behavior of those banned and d) an after-the-fact change to the rules.
None of the situations you highlight involved a) zero advance warning b) a week of radio silence from Twitter c) lies from Twitter about the behavior of those banned and d) an after-the-fact change to the rules.
a) false, b) irrelevant, c) false, and d) false
I think my thread was probably not the relevant one to ask this question in? I was contradicting buddy's claim that history doesn't matter. I believe it does. I wasn't saying anything about the new ownership or actions thereof.
I'm also not convinced that Twitter (and it's community/prior management which yes already neutered the API) was some holy thing that needed to be protected and we should all care if it destroys itself. Twitter getting a fire under its ass to become better or die off is not the worst case scenario in my mind.
At least as far as I can tell everyone is still using it with rare exceptions. The people most likely to post alarmist and FUDy stuff also tends to be the people least likely to abandon social media for some higher social/moral purposes.
Once enough time passes and we have enough inside information (and less current day emotion) we'll be able to better analyze these decisions and trends from a macro perspective. Twitter encourages debating things immediately with limited information on overall strategy and actual outcomes/consequences, so ironically I'm also critiquing the very thing Twitter morphed the Zeitgeist into, but oh well.
At least as far as I can tell everyone is still using it with rare exceptions. The people most likely to post alarmist and FUDy stuff also tends to be the people least likely to abandon social media for some higher social/moral purposes.
Once enough time passes and we have enough inside information (and less current day emotion) we'll be able to better analyze these decisions and trends from a macro perspective. Twitter encourages debating things immediately with limited information on overall strategy and actual outcomes/consequences, so ironically I'm also critiquing the very thing Twitter morphed the Zeitgeist into, but oh well.
Musk is definitely making Twitter worse. The only hope might actually make it much better by killing it off for good.
The actual regular Twitter experience is better than it's ever been. All the easily-outraged people leaving is a feature not a bug.
I agree; the haters have politically-motivated brainworms. The actual user experience is a lot better now than when Dorsey was in charge, especially if you live outside of North America.
Musk is actually making HN and Reddit worse because people cannot stop talking about him.
At some point, you have to ask yourself if it's worth typing out and posting something that would be ChatGPT's response to "write a Hacker News comment decrying Elon Musk".
As a pretty avid Twitter user, I'm still enjoying it.
At some point, you have to ask yourself if it's worth typing out and posting something that would be ChatGPT's response to "write a Hacker News comment decrying Elon Musk".
As a pretty avid Twitter user, I'm still enjoying it.
The article is about another part of the twitter ecosystem shutting down. If talk of twitter’s decline annoys you, maybe there are better places to spend your time?
It doesn't take an IQ 3 standard deviations beyond the mean to figure out I was talking about the websites in general
> Musk is definitely making Twitter worse.
In terms of actual content it's a very marginal difference for the vast majority of people I'm sure.
Slightly more people posting angry outraged tweets != twitter content being significantly worse.
The technical failure complaints/predictions will probably find more purchase on HN, despite the feeds being much of the same.
I'm very skeptical Entertainment Tonight style negative PR for Twitter's business ops is what is bad for Twitter as a product for normal day-to-day users. Note: I'm not talking about what's bad for society, if that's what mattered The National Enquirer wouldn't have topped newspaper sales long ago.
In terms of actual content it's a very marginal difference for the vast majority of people I'm sure.
Slightly more people posting angry outraged tweets != twitter content being significantly worse.
The technical failure complaints/predictions will probably find more purchase on HN, despite the feeds being much of the same.
I'm very skeptical Entertainment Tonight style negative PR for Twitter's business ops is what is bad for Twitter as a product for normal day-to-day users. Note: I'm not talking about what's bad for society, if that's what mattered The National Enquirer wouldn't have topped newspaper sales long ago.
I disagree, because it is 2023 now.
Twitter was not, well, Twitter without the users and developers. Hashtags, replies, threads…users and developers. Not the product managers.
And that’s relevant because: if you’re developing a product today, probably worth thinking about how so many features and practices are an emergent property of how it’s used, and not what you are narrowly planning for.
Twitter was not, well, Twitter without the users and developers. Hashtags, replies, threads…users and developers. Not the product managers.
And that’s relevant because: if you’re developing a product today, probably worth thinking about how so many features and practices are an emergent property of how it’s used, and not what you are narrowly planning for.
People are still very much interested in how the big bang happened by the way.
It's 200 BC now, it's not important how Carthage and Rome were founded.
It's hard to overstate how much of an impact third party twitter clients have had on Twitter and the broader mobile landscape - like the post mentions, the word 'Tweet' and blue bird twitter icon came from third party clients! The Tweetie app invented pull-to-refresh, used by every (both) mobile operating systems.
Yup!
Also hard to overstate the impact the new ownership has had, such that their assessment is now:
>>"...an increasingly capricious Twitter – a Twitter that we no longer recognize as trustworthy nor want to work with any longer."
This, from people that partnered with Twitter for a decade++
The new owner had a lot of us, me included, fooled into thinking he was intelligent and trustworthy. Now, it is obvious he's neither.
Wealth reveals character, and it is sad to see that that character is so rotten.
Also hard to overstate the impact the new ownership has had, such that their assessment is now:
>>"...an increasingly capricious Twitter – a Twitter that we no longer recognize as trustworthy nor want to work with any longer."
This, from people that partnered with Twitter for a decade++
The new owner had a lot of us, me included, fooled into thinking he was intelligent and trustworthy. Now, it is obvious he's neither.
Wealth reveals character, and it is sad to see that that character is so rotten.
Twitter fucked with API and app makers way before he bought it. "Final nail in the coffin" would be closer to truth
> Wealth reveals character
feel like this is probably demonstrably wrong, but too lazy to google it.
i'd go more with, 'wealth can allow one to become monster', or 'wealth creates monsters', or similar.
the difference is 'creates' vs 'reveals'.
i.e. give anyone a billion dollars and watch most of them become monsters, probably. and one might turn out to be like mackenzie scott.
give everyone a hundred bucks and make them dependent on each other for survival, and watch antisocial behavior drop to near-zero near-instantaneously -- i.e. no monsters.
wealth creates power.
power corrupts.
it's why socialism has always probably been the answer. and if not that, then some semblence of equality - of power, in particular.
if people are able to operate largely without consequence, then they might act in antisocial ways - like musk, in this particular example.
but you wouldn't have to go outside your own daily lived experience to find all sorts of people doing all sorts of bad things because they are relatively unaccountable - they don't face real consequences for their behavior.
feel like this is probably demonstrably wrong, but too lazy to google it.
i'd go more with, 'wealth can allow one to become monster', or 'wealth creates monsters', or similar.
the difference is 'creates' vs 'reveals'.
i.e. give anyone a billion dollars and watch most of them become monsters, probably. and one might turn out to be like mackenzie scott.
give everyone a hundred bucks and make them dependent on each other for survival, and watch antisocial behavior drop to near-zero near-instantaneously -- i.e. no monsters.
wealth creates power.
power corrupts.
it's why socialism has always probably been the answer. and if not that, then some semblence of equality - of power, in particular.
if people are able to operate largely without consequence, then they might act in antisocial ways - like musk, in this particular example.
but you wouldn't have to go outside your own daily lived experience to find all sorts of people doing all sorts of bad things because they are relatively unaccountable - they don't face real consequences for their behavior.
I agree with you in that money and power corrupt. I think some people want to believe it just “reveals character” as a defence mechanism, as in, that could never happen to them, they’re a good person, and they’d still be good even with wealth. If it happened to Elon Musk then he must’ve been bad from the start.
But:
> if people are able to operate largely without consequence, then they might act in antisocial ways - like musk, in this particular example
Not trying to defend the guy, but come on - he bought a company, took it private, and he is now free to ruin it as he sees fit. That’s not antisocial behaviour. He’s just making the decisions he thinks are best for Twitter (even if I disagree with them).
And we have to consider the fact that when a celebrity does something, it is blown to a much bigger proportion by the media. Some random small business owner blocking third parties? Nobody cares, most apps aren’t even that open to begin with. Elon Musk does it? “What an antisocial monster corrupted by power and money”
Meanwhile, murderers face real consequences for their behaviour, and you see it happening anyway, so your thesis that bad behaviour only happens because people are unaccountable is demonstrably false.
But:
> if people are able to operate largely without consequence, then they might act in antisocial ways - like musk, in this particular example
Not trying to defend the guy, but come on - he bought a company, took it private, and he is now free to ruin it as he sees fit. That’s not antisocial behaviour. He’s just making the decisions he thinks are best for Twitter (even if I disagree with them).
And we have to consider the fact that when a celebrity does something, it is blown to a much bigger proportion by the media. Some random small business owner blocking third parties? Nobody cares, most apps aren’t even that open to begin with. Elon Musk does it? “What an antisocial monster corrupted by power and money”
Meanwhile, murderers face real consequences for their behaviour, and you see it happening anyway, so your thesis that bad behaviour only happens because people are unaccountable is demonstrably false.
> Not trying to defend the guy, but come on - he bought a company, took it private, and he is now free to ruin it as he sees fit.
your argument seems pretty amoral - like, you don't expect musk to even have a sense of right and wrong, much less try to act in a manner which many/most would consider decently.
> And we have to consider the fact that when a celebrity does something, it is blown to a much bigger proportion by the media.
> your thesis that bad behaviour only happens because people are unaccountable is demonstrably false.
but is bad / antisocial behaviour much more likely when expected to be relatively free of consequences? i'd almost bet my life on it. maybe there's some wrinkle i haven't thought of yet, but it doesn't seem like rocket science.
Yeah original twitter allowed an explosion of creativity (both in style and interaction) around clients, due to its simple data and interaction model.
Tweetie even got bought and turned into the official client.
TweetDeck too as the official power-user web-client.
At the time I thought of building a client but the dependence on Twitter seemed like a huge risk. More fool me though given that those companies were taken over for a decent amount.
At the time I thought of building a client but the dependence on Twitter seemed like a huge risk. More fool me though given that those companies were taken over for a decent amount.
You were right though, just not on the time-scale that you assumed at the time.
Recent and related:
Official Twitter Statement on Revoking API Access to 3rd Party Devs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34416416 - Jan 2023 (11 comments)
Twitter kicking off a developer API campaign on January 16, 2023 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34410624 - Jan 2023 (107 comments)
Tweetbot is back down again - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34396664 - Jan 2023 (210 comments)
The Shit Show - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34393485 - Jan 2023 (312 comments)
Twitter API Page - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34387834 - Jan 2023 (98 comments)
Twitter's API is down? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34363743 - Jan 2023 (408 comments)
Official Twitter Statement on Revoking API Access to 3rd Party Devs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34416416 - Jan 2023 (11 comments)
Twitter kicking off a developer API campaign on January 16, 2023 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34410624 - Jan 2023 (107 comments)
Tweetbot is back down again - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34396664 - Jan 2023 (210 comments)
The Shit Show - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34393485 - Jan 2023 (312 comments)
Twitter API Page - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34387834 - Jan 2023 (98 comments)
Twitter's API is down? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34363743 - Jan 2023 (408 comments)
> Official Twitter Statement on Revoking API Access to 3rd Party Devs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34416416 - Jan 2023 (11 comments)
To be clear, this statement was a lie. They added the "long-standing policy" today, retroactively. https://www.engadget.com/twitter-new-developer-terms-ban-thi...
(Musk also promised a vote on major policy changes. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604616863673208832)
To be clear, this statement was a lie. They added the "long-standing policy" today, retroactively. https://www.engadget.com/twitter-new-developer-terms-ban-thi...
(Musk also promised a vote on major policy changes. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604616863673208832)
Musk also promised to step down based on a majority poll. What ever happened to this happening?
> Musk also promised to step down based on a majority poll
After saying he would be stepping back from Twitter in short order under oath in the Tesla shareholder lawsuit.
But a Musk promise only being delivered long after the initially-stated timeframe, if ever, is hardly abnormal.
After saying he would be stepping back from Twitter in short order under oath in the Tesla shareholder lawsuit.
But a Musk promise only being delivered long after the initially-stated timeframe, if ever, is hardly abnormal.
One of his conditions is whoever takes the CEO spot has to invest their entire life savings into it. I doubt Musk will find many worthwhile candidates willing to make their entire financial life subject to his impulsive behavior.
He was either a) trolling the haters, or b) still intends to step down when they find a suitable CEO to replace him.
it might be and you just don't know yet. these things take time.
Of course. One day, he will step down. and then he will be fulfilling the promise.
When the company finally auctions off it's last real asset (it's name) .. then he will resign from the ash-heap he created.
true executive searches take months, not days.
I maintain the position I have had ever since Twitter sold people on the ridiculous idea of "API keys": the correct path has always been adversarial interoperability (as we did back forever ago when people built alternative apps for instant messaging services); if Twitterrific had been designed to use the same API and authority as the official app--maybe as a fallback, if nothing else--Twitter would not have been easily able to kill it... they could try, but it would be a cat and mouse game at best, and the only real recourse they would have would have been to try to detect API abnormalities (which Twitterific could quickly fix, and frankly the skeleton crew at Twitter today likely couldn't do well anyway) to directly punish the end users for continuing to insist on logging in with alternative clients (as Snapchat is forced to do); and, while it is easy to just shut off Twitterific's API key and tell the users "too bad", I think having to take the war to Twitterific's userbase (as the app would be able to keep working forever, with only momentary brownouts) would be a tougher pill for Twitter to swallow, given that it had way too much marketshare at this point.
Unauthorized “gray” third-party clients were a more viable option in the days when vendors couldn’t easily update first-party client program installations in the wild, so the API had to be backwards compatible.
But it’s not really like that for Twitter. They can do rapid updates to the iOS and Android apps, and any holdovers of old client versions would be a relatively small segment.
I recall Microsoft tried to build and maintain their own YouTube client for Windows Phone around 2011-12. That’s probably the last time a major tech company tried this approach and it was out of massive desperation. Google seemed to make a special effort to break the app.
But it’s not really like that for Twitter. They can do rapid updates to the iOS and Android apps, and any holdovers of old client versions would be a relatively small segment.
I recall Microsoft tried to build and maintain their own YouTube client for Windows Phone around 2011-12. That’s probably the last time a major tech company tried this approach and it was out of massive desperation. Google seemed to make a special effort to break the app.
There's probably a need for legislation here. It's completely normal and vital for competition that you can make things that are (adversarially) interoperable with others in the physical realm and you can't really be stopped (as long as you don't just copy).
That's not really a thing once you involve software. It's trivial to lock things down using cryptography and constant changes, making any kind of interoperability entirely infeasible.
As far as I understand this is pretty unprecedented and very bad for an efficient market.
That's not really a thing once you involve software. It's trivial to lock things down using cryptography and constant changes, making any kind of interoperability entirely infeasible.
As far as I understand this is pretty unprecedented and very bad for an efficient market.
Idk, having other, especially adversarial, companies between service and a customer just sounds like a recipe for bad things being pushed. Like IE toolbars. Or addblock (i use it, but it certainly has societal downsides). Or all the things our ISP wants to do with our traffic. You'd need unimaginably well crafted policy for this to not go south and have us complain about the opposite shortly thereafter.
yeah good luck in getting legislation that makes the twitter backend a common carrier.
It's straightforward anti-trust - currently Twitter-the-company is bundling Twitter-the-client-software with Twitter-the-service, using the market position of the latter to maintain the market position of the former.
Isn’t that almost every social app?
Yes. Just because it's been normalized doesn't mean it ought to be that way.
I have been running the same copy of Facebook and Twitter and certainly YouTube on my phone for many years now. The only people who have been able to try to push updates at people like that are Snapchat, and even they have a hard time doing it quickly and at scale: and it only results in a temporary loss of service for the alternative clients!
(And, even then, most of the success for Snapchat comes because 1) the official clients for Snapchat go far out of their way to do crazy obfuscation techniques and 2) they wield a ban hammer over end users over trivial infractions making it difficult to test; I fail to see how such would work for YouTube, where third-party clients are, in fact, plentiful).
At F8 back forever ago, the reason Zuckerberg cited for having to give up on "Move Fast and Break Things" and go to "Move Fast with Stable Infra" is because they in fact couldn't rapidly push updates to their apps across the myriad supported platforms the way they could with their website, and so they effectively had to maintain API compatibility across ridiculously long timespans of client versions... much long enough to let the alternative clients reverse engineer the new builds and have updates out before Facebook can just kill service to the old ones.
(And, even then, most of the success for Snapchat comes because 1) the official clients for Snapchat go far out of their way to do crazy obfuscation techniques and 2) they wield a ban hammer over end users over trivial infractions making it difficult to test; I fail to see how such would work for YouTube, where third-party clients are, in fact, plentiful).
At F8 back forever ago, the reason Zuckerberg cited for having to give up on "Move Fast and Break Things" and go to "Move Fast with Stable Infra" is because they in fact couldn't rapidly push updates to their apps across the myriad supported platforms the way they could with their website, and so they effectively had to maintain API compatibility across ridiculously long timespans of client versions... much long enough to let the alternative clients reverse engineer the new builds and have updates out before Facebook can just kill service to the old ones.
> But it’s not really like that for Twitter. They can do rapid updates to the iOS and Android apps
They can do rapid updates to the apps but doesn't it take time for users to apply the update? Where I work you can't expect people to update their app right away, it takes days or even weeks for people to catch up.
They can do rapid updates to the apps but doesn't it take time for users to apply the update? Where I work you can't expect people to update their app right away, it takes days or even weeks for people to catch up.
No. All they have to do is to deny access to the old app with a "you must update to the new version of the app" alert, and people will comply.
Android and iOS have had automatic background updates (on by default) for years.
Twitter put in a reasonable about of effort to keep old clients working and compatible with backend changes. We had checks in place to avoid breaking changes to clients that were years old, and when things did occasionally get through they were rolled back very, very quickly. If I remember correctly there are people with old devices/jailbreaks running things like clients on like iOS 7 and things still work for them for the most part.
> They can do rapid updates to the iOS and Android apps
Sort of! I haven't updated my iOS install in many months. I don't see the new fake blue checks or a handful of other dumb new features, it's kind of great!
Sort of! I haven't updated my iOS install in many months. I don't see the new fake blue checks or a handful of other dumb new features, it's kind of great!
Do you see any twitter ?
> They can do rapid updates to the iOS and Android apps
Can they? Do they not go through the usual review process?
Can they? Do they not go through the usual review process?
This wouldn't play out like you want to believe.
All your suggestions lead to a terms of service violation for the Icon Factory and would likely result in their Apple developer accounts being banned, especially if Elon wanted to pursue it.
Getting their developer accounts banned would affect their other products, as well as any future products.
Aside from all the above, the vast majority of their Twitterrific customers doesn't understand API keys and will complain and request app and subscription refunds, likely also leading to developer account problems.
Falken's Law applies here: The only winning move is not to play.
All your suggestions lead to a terms of service violation for the Icon Factory and would likely result in their Apple developer accounts being banned, especially if Elon wanted to pursue it.
Getting their developer accounts banned would affect their other products, as well as any future products.
Aside from all the above, the vast majority of their Twitterrific customers doesn't understand API keys and will complain and request app and subscription refunds, likely also leading to developer account problems.
Falken's Law applies here: The only winning move is not to play.
I hate Apple :(. Like, isn't it kind of ridiculous how the issue here isn't that doing this is somehow illegal, but that Apple is willing to step in to remove apps that hurt fellow Big Tech companies? Apple simply should not have centralized control over what software can and cannot exist: that's the real issue.
The writing is on the wall though, Apple is going to have to let other app stores exist. I think the EU said so already, and I would bet the Brussels effect will make this happen elsewhere.
> isn't that doing this is somehow illegal
Well, it may not be a felony, but I wouldn't bet my business on something like this if I was small. Likelihood of a lawsuit and all.
> Apple is willing to step in to remove apps that hurt fellow Big Tech companies
Not clear to me that they would be willing, are there any historical examples?
Well, it may not be a felony, but I wouldn't bet my business on something like this if I was small. Likelihood of a lawsuit and all.
> Apple is willing to step in to remove apps that hurt fellow Big Tech companies
Not clear to me that they would be willing, are there any historical examples?
I would be shocked if Google don't have a similar policy.
I'm thankful we had people like you, fighting the good fight.
apple is not going to listen to elon.
I maintained an adversarial browser extension with around 100k users that added stuff like tooltips and keyboard shortcuts to a browser game, for about 3 years. The reward was the developer copying a couple of my easiest ideas, then sending me legal threats and banning a bunch of my users (who were their paying customers). The engineering time they spent (quite a bit) trying to detect my extension or break it could have been spent doing things like adding ARIA roles and alt text, but they don't care about people with disabilities.
I kept it going for 3 years because I cared about the people who used it, and the developer struggled to block it because it's hard to outwit someone who worked on web browsers. In the end though, it's not worth doing free work for a company that doesn't respect the needs of their customers. Go elsewhere.
I kept it going for 3 years because I cared about the people who used it, and the developer struggled to block it because it's hard to outwit someone who worked on web browsers. In the end though, it's not worth doing free work for a company that doesn't respect the needs of their customers. Go elsewhere.
> correct path has always been adversarial interoperability
Ceding users' screens doesn't work with an ad-based business model.
Ceding users' screens doesn't work with an ad-based business model.
Your jailbreak spirit lives on, a big thank you! A tweak exists for the official client to clean up a lot of the issues:
https://github.com/BandarHL/BHTwitter
Hopefully this now gets more support with the antics that Twitter has pulled with these 3rd party clients.
Hopefully this now gets more support with the antics that Twitter has pulled with these 3rd party clients.
Twitterrific makes money; it has a whole team of developers whose salaries are paid by them existing in the App Store and taking money via subscriptions. Adversarial interoperatability would result in Twitter sending the team a cease and desist, and given that their product isn't particularly decentralized or hard to enforce legal action against, they would probably lose the lawsuit or fold early. I think you need to understand that the number of people who want to be in this kind of relationship with an entity far larger than them is pretty small, and clients of this sort are invariably some sort of open source script or small project by a single developer without much to lose. A Twitterriffic where you could lose your access to you account and its many thousands of followers is not actually something people will use.
While I think I've come around to this position, the big question here that comes to mind is: does this even work for iOS apps, given Twitter could just go to Apple (the App Store team, I guess) over it?
This is the rub, and I do believe the answer is "no" :/. But, "Apple having central control over software development and distribution is, at its best, an extra-judicial defense of surveillance capitalism (...and, at its worst, an extra-judicial defense of totalitarian regimes)" is at least nothing new :(.
I really miss the iOS jailbreak ecosystem--back before Apple really started to win--as I felt like I could just build whatever I wanted (as long as it was legal and I definitely had lots of lawyers to check some of the stuff I had wanted to release ;P) and push it without asking for permission from Big Tech :(.
I really miss the iOS jailbreak ecosystem--back before Apple really started to win--as I felt like I could just build whatever I wanted (as long as it was legal and I definitely had lots of lawyers to check some of the stuff I had wanted to release ;P) and push it without asking for permission from Big Tech :(.
Looks like we need to wait for the Digital Markets Act. But the pessimist in me thinks Apple will somehow worm their way out of that.
Twitterific is made by Iconfactory in Greensboro NC. Twitter can sue for violating their terms of service if they did as you suggest.
So I am not a lawyer, and if you do this stuff you should get a real lawyer (I mean, I have lots of real lawyers! ;P), but I am on the front lines of a lot of these battles (look into who I am if you haven't; hell: I've had Snapchat once try to come after people in my ecosystem, and the only thing their lawyers had as an argument was trademark law... I easily shoved them away), and I am going to claim Twitter would have no legs to stand on. At best--at BEST--they could ban you and all of your company accounts from their service.
> look into who I am if you haven't
Heh. To save some people a click: An important figure in the iOS jailbreaking scene (maker of the foundational tweaking framework and app store).
Thanks for all the good times. Jailbreaking was great for my experimentation urge and taught me a lot about Unix. It also informed some software opinions I still hold today (much more things should work like WinterBoard's layering). A jailbreakable iOS device is a great educational toy for a kid interested in messing with technology (Amazon Kindles are good for this too, by the way).
And thanks for also being involved in legally defending these freedoms. (I've been waiting for a chance to say this without writing a completely unproductive comment)
Heh. To save some people a click: An important figure in the iOS jailbreaking scene (maker of the foundational tweaking framework and app store).
Thanks for all the good times. Jailbreaking was great for my experimentation urge and taught me a lot about Unix. It also informed some software opinions I still hold today (much more things should work like WinterBoard's layering). A jailbreakable iOS device is a great educational toy for a kid interested in messing with technology (Amazon Kindles are good for this too, by the way).
And thanks for also being involved in legally defending these freedoms. (I've been waiting for a chance to say this without writing a completely unproductive comment)
Thinking about it more, I think you're probably right. If LinkedIn wasnt able to stop HiQ, then I dont see how this would be different.
How would it not be a CFAA violation? E.g. if they included the official client's API key, surely that falls under "(6) knowingly and with intent to defraud traffics (as defined in section 1029) in any password or similar information through which a computer may be accessed without authorization, if—(A) such trafficking affects interstate or foreign commerce".
(I say this not because I think it should be a crime, but because I think the CFAA is a terribly broad law)
(I say this not because I think it should be a crime, but because I think the CFAA is a terribly broad law)
So maybe they can't sue the company making a third party app. But take Discord for instance. It's against the Discord terms of service to use a third party client, and there are stories of Discord banning users who do use third-party clients.
Now, Discord doesn't need to sue anyone to stop me from using a third party client—the threat of being banned is enough deterrent to keep me on the official client.
Now, Discord doesn't need to sue anyone to stop me from using a third party client—the threat of being banned is enough deterrent to keep me on the official client.
Discord doesn't ban third party clients, only illegal stuff like spamming.
From the people at Discord:
> I run the infrastructure department at Discord which includes our anti-spam engineering team -- Just want to +1 what you're saying and confirm that we are never trying to ban third party clients (that aren't self-bots). Honestly, it would be a waste of our time and basically do nothing good for Discord.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28438440
From the people at Discord:
> I run the infrastructure department at Discord which includes our anti-spam engineering team -- Just want to +1 what you're saying and confirm that we are never trying to ban third party clients (that aren't self-bots). Honestly, it would be a waste of our time and basically do nothing good for Discord.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28438440
I talked about that in at least half of my original comment. To repeat, Twitterific managed to get to having the kind of marketshare to make that war interesting (in a way Discord clients never have and likely never will: they didn't make the same bargain with third-party app developers that Twitter did, where Twitter left most of the innovation to third-parties).
That is the reason I only use it in my browser to apply custom css and fix their ugly mess - design decisions - to my liking.
I apologize if this comes across as a snarky tangent, but I'm genuinely curious if law firms would even contract with Twitter now, given Musk's willingness to not pay bills.
Law firms can demand payment in advance. It's called a retainer.
Somebody would be willing to do it for the clout
>and frankly the skeleton crew at Twitter today likely couldn't do well anyway
You can just use attestation to make sure that people are using the official twitter client and not a third party one. There is no cat and mouse game no that mobile platforms offer security against malicious third party clients.
You can just use attestation to make sure that people are using the official twitter client and not a third party one. There is no cat and mouse game no that mobile platforms offer security against malicious third party clients.
I don't know the specifics about Twitter's API saga over the years but... why isn't this the case? Why does Twitter need to be involved on the client side with consumption of the API?
> Why does Twitter need to be involved on the client side with consumption of the API?
Twitter is an advertising company. Alternative clients do not show Twitter's ads nor return to Twitter user data, so Twitter makes no money when alternative clients get used but still incurs bandwidth costs. There is no profit, only cost, in providing an exchange for short text messages; the profit all comes in the advertising, and that requires control of the client UI.
Twitter is an advertising company. Alternative clients do not show Twitter's ads nor return to Twitter user data, so Twitter makes no money when alternative clients get used but still incurs bandwidth costs. There is no profit, only cost, in providing an exchange for short text messages; the profit all comes in the advertising, and that requires control of the client UI.
Just yet another reason to eradicate this cancerous, disgusting business model. It seems like the majority of the evils of tech in the past decade can be attributed to it.
> Why does Twitter need to be involved on the client side with consumption of the API?
They don't need to be involved, they want to be involved, and they have the legal backing to do so.
They don't need to be involved, they want to be involved, and they have the legal backing to do so.
Can you provide any citation for them having "legal backing"? I literally participate in hearings at the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress over people providing adversarial interoperability and I have never seen any functional legal argument against such.
The CFAA forbids unauthorized use of an API. By banning third-party clients, Twitter is making it very clear what constitutes unauthorized use.
I see plenty of discussion about CFAA being used against scrapers, particularly automated "bot" scrapers, but I don't see anything about alternative clients, where a human consumer of the service is barred from using the API. But I also only did cursory searching, so some sources for CFAA applied to API would be helpful.
I'm not sure how this would be any different than other software projects that use an API they don't own. Things like Cider for Apple Music, Ripcord for Slack, and the many Spotify clients all come to mind. Perhaps those are less aggressive in pursing 3rd party clients?
I'm not sure how this would be any different than other software projects that use an API they don't own. Things like Cider for Apple Music, Ripcord for Slack, and the many Spotify clients all come to mind. Perhaps those are less aggressive in pursing 3rd party clients?
The idea is you get the content for free if you also get the ads. Why do you think publishers don't expose an API client that serves their content for free?
The issue is why can't Twitter charge for tweets via their API, but offer them for free in a browser if they are served alongside ads. Perhaps their own internal research suggests so few people would be willing to pay that it wouldn't be worth maintaining the API, but it would be nice to hear more info about this.
The issue is why can't Twitter charge for tweets via their API, but offer them for free in a browser if they are served alongside ads. Perhaps their own internal research suggests so few people would be willing to pay that it wouldn't be worth maintaining the API, but it would be nice to hear more info about this.
This is absolutely humiliating for these 3rd party people. Twitter shows no respect whatsoever for these devs.
You wanna shut them down to show more ads? Fine. But at least communicate and let them know upfront. What a sh*t show.
You wanna shut them down to show more ads? Fine. But at least communicate and let them know upfront. What a sh*t show.
> Twitter shows no respect whatsoever for these devs.
Or for the users of those apps.
Or for the users of those apps.
There's probably a distorted view there where the percentage of overall users using third-party clients is absolutely minuscule, but if you look at the percentage of content _creators_ it's much larger. At least I remember reading it was like that around the time that I stopped using Twitter a few years ago.
For a couple people in my social network this was the final straw. They're gone now and will never come back.
Pretty much everyone who does this stuff for a job (social media managers, etc) is using third-party clients.
> Or for the users of those apps
Is this the sound of nails hammering into Twitter Blue's coffin? An obvious premium feature would have been API tokens.
Is this the sound of nails hammering into Twitter Blue's coffin? An obvious premium feature would have been API tokens.
Yeah that seems like a no-brainer, but I suppose Musk wants tight control over how Twitter is used. It's harder to herd users around with third-party clients rendering user-undesired changes moot.
It's not the first time we've seen something like this. Youtube is infamously harsh on alternative clients and Spotify went from the most developer-friendly streaming service to one of the least friendly… the former because third party clients can cut out ads, the latter because third party clients stymy efforts to drive users towards more profitable content instead of what they really want to listen to.
Third party clients also don't really mesh with Musk's "everything app" aspirations but that's probably moot because I don't see Twitter becoming one of those any time soon.
It's not the first time we've seen something like this. Youtube is infamously harsh on alternative clients and Spotify went from the most developer-friendly streaming service to one of the least friendly… the former because third party clients can cut out ads, the latter because third party clients stymy efforts to drive users towards more profitable content instead of what they really want to listen to.
Third party clients also don't really mesh with Musk's "everything app" aspirations but that's probably moot because I don't see Twitter becoming one of those any time soon.
Or the workers
Is Twitter a gatekeeper in context of the new EU digital markets act? Perhaps this is an illegal move.
You mean Elon Musk
It’s not ‘Twitter’ showing no respect. Let’s stop beating around the bush, it’s one person.
Oh please - Twitter has never given a shit about third party clients and has been threatening to do this for a long time now. Devs couldn't even get API keys to authorize new users of their products for the longest time.
It's still shitty that Twitter still hasn't been up front and definitive about the status of the API, none of this is new just because of Elon.
It's still shitty that Twitter still hasn't been up front and definitive about the status of the API, none of this is new just because of Elon.
Yeah, I was at Chirp in 2010 and they couldn’t have been more explicit that they didn’t want people working on third party clients, which made for a weird atmosphere at a developer conference.
Yeah, this is annoying to me personally because the client I use now doesn't work, but the writing has been on the wall for aaaaaages. The client I use was pulled from the store in 2018 because they hit their token limit.
But it took Musk to actually pull the plug, he could have turned it around.
Here's the hard truth ...
Lesson learned: don't build your business on top of someone else's business, especially if you're not paying (under contract) to access that other service.
Lesson learned: don't build your business on top of someone else's business, especially if you're not paying (under contract) to access that other service.
That's the wrong lesson to learn, in my opinion. One should understand the ramifications and risks of building a business on top of someone else's platform, but doing so can actually let you shortcut a lot of really difficult steps, such as user acquisition.
These people built successful businesses for nigh a decade, and even if they were eventually shut off due to a change in ownership, they still presumably earned ample profit.
Personally, I've built a business on top of someone else's platform (Valve) and it was hugely beneficial for me even though I was very aware I could be cut off at any point. All businesses are a gamble, pick what gambles you want to take and be honest about their upsides and downsides.
These people built successful businesses for nigh a decade, and even if they were eventually shut off due to a change in ownership, they still presumably earned ample profit.
Personally, I've built a business on top of someone else's platform (Valve) and it was hugely beneficial for me even though I was very aware I could be cut off at any point. All businesses are a gamble, pick what gambles you want to take and be honest about their upsides and downsides.
The difference is Valve is a platform built with the intent for others to build upon.
It’s literally what the core service is and there’s a built in revenue share (contract) between the developers and Valve.
No such construct nor intent existed with Twitter.
It’s literally what the core service is and there’s a built in revenue share (contract) between the developers and Valve.
No such construct nor intent existed with Twitter.
> The difference is Valve is a platform built with the intent for others to build upon.
Not necessarily. I'm not selling a game on Steam, I built my business providing a third party service around one of Valve's self-developed games. Generally speaking, Valve is friendlier to developers so it was a safer bet, but it was in no way a contract nor guaranteed.
Twitter actually used to promote third party apps in their sidebar. Even though they long ago made it clear that third party apps were being hamstrung, for quite some time they actually encouraged third party apps being developed and didn't bother them too much beyond limiting their access to the streaming API.
Not necessarily. I'm not selling a game on Steam, I built my business providing a third party service around one of Valve's self-developed games. Generally speaking, Valve is friendlier to developers so it was a safer bet, but it was in no way a contract nor guaranteed.
Twitter actually used to promote third party apps in their sidebar. Even though they long ago made it clear that third party apps were being hamstrung, for quite some time they actually encouraged third party apps being developed and didn't bother them too much beyond limiting their access to the streaming API.
I dont buy into that line of thinking.
You make hay whilst the sunshines.
If you can make money from an App, then do so.
Of course you have to diversify; dont put all your eggs in one basket.
But if there is an opportunity to make money, then go make it.
You can build your name on a high profile popular product, even if the product is short lived.
Businesses and product lines dont generally last forever! :-)
You make hay whilst the sunshines.
If you can make money from an App, then do so.
Of course you have to diversify; dont put all your eggs in one basket.
But if there is an opportunity to make money, then go make it.
You can build your name on a high profile popular product, even if the product is short lived.
Businesses and product lines dont generally last forever! :-)
I don’t think that’s the lesson. Twitterrific was a huge success and “kept the lights on” for Iconfactory for a decade.
The lesson is not that building on the services of others is bad. It was good. But you don’t get to choose when it will end.
The lesson is not that building on the services of others is bad. It was good. But you don’t get to choose when it will end.
Well said. Too often people say don’t build on others, but you always have to build on top of existing things. What you don’t want is to be building on something that you don’t have a contractual relationship with. Even better is if it’s clear how you both win financially or otherwise.
gestures broadly at the mobile app store duopoly
This is true but I think there's a key difference which is worth considering if you're in this situation: app stores are in the business of selling apps. This means there's a risk of being Sherlock-ed but in general they're not going to decide that they suddenly want to stop existing. They want you to sell lots of copies since they get a cut of every sale: if you're successful, they make a ton of money for a modest level of expense.
Something like a Twitter client is not only not part of their core business of selling ads but diametrically opposed to it so you have a much higher risk of unexpectedly being out of business because their success is not directly linked to yours. Arguments about innovation, bringing in super users, etc. are good but they're more tenuous and exactly the kind of thing some executive will dismiss when compared to the money they can make right now with more ad sales.
Something like a Twitter client is not only not part of their core business of selling ads but diametrically opposed to it so you have a much higher risk of unexpectedly being out of business because their success is not directly linked to yours. Arguments about innovation, bringing in super users, etc. are good but they're more tenuous and exactly the kind of thing some executive will dismiss when compared to the money they can make right now with more ad sales.
Neither of the major app stores is in the business of selling apps. Apple is in the business of selling iPhones and Google is in the business of selling ads.
Apple and Google each make tens of billions annually from their portion of sales, they’re not going to lightly jeopardize that.
In contrast, Twitter sees third-party developers as a cost.
In contrast, Twitter sees third-party developers as a cost.
Yep. Building (consumer) mobile apps is a mug's game.
Absolutely. The creators of third-party clients have not learned anything about the risks of building on top of someone else's business and APIs and exactly when that service is a completely free API.
As predicted here: [0] when a third-party Discord client had to shut down [1] because Discord Inc. controlled the platform, the same has happened to Twitter.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25685294
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25684953
As predicted here: [0] when a third-party Discord client had to shut down [1] because Discord Inc. controlled the platform, the same has happened to Twitter.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25685294
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25684953
It’s obviously bad business (for Twitter given the cost / benefit) and show’s Elon’s lack of empathy but also demonstrates the perils of having a user like him run the show.
He literally couldn’t care about anything that doesn’t affect his own experience of the product. Features, clients, parts of the world, even users - if Elon isn’t interested then it will probably go or be ignored.
He literally couldn’t care about anything that doesn’t affect his own experience of the product. Features, clients, parts of the world, even users - if Elon isn’t interested then it will probably go or be ignored.
Do you have a source on your assumption of costs and benefits
> Do you have a source on your assumption of costs and benefits
We know Twitter is careening towards bankruptcy under his management. There are other factors at play. But the buck stops with him, and the buck is getting fucked.
We know Twitter is careening towards bankruptcy under his management. There are other factors at play. But the buck stops with him, and the buck is getting fucked.
Do we? What is this based on?
> Since 2007, Twitterrific helped define the shape of the Twitter experience. It was the first desktop client, the first mobile client, one of the very first apps in the App Store, an Apple Design award winner, and it even helped redefine the word “tweet” in the dictionary. Ollie, Twitterrific’s bluebird mascot, was so popular it even prompted Twitter themselves to later adopt a bluebird logo of their very own. Our little app made a big dent on the world!
Wow they really helped make Twitter what it is today
Wow they really helped make Twitter what it is today
[deleted]
To be honest, I expect Elon and Twitter will be discontinued at some point, without any good feelings and thanks on the part of any of their customers, unlike the app developers Twitter just killed.
What is needed is to do Twitter again, in some way that is more open and supportive of client apps, but still has the immediacy and global search that Twitter has. Mastodon has its uses, but it isn't a real replacement. Twitter was always a terrible business, but an incredibly useful idea. The idea needs to exist.
What is needed is to do Twitter again, in some way that is more open and supportive of client apps, but still has the immediacy and global search that Twitter has. Mastodon has its uses, but it isn't a real replacement. Twitter was always a terrible business, but an incredibly useful idea. The idea needs to exist.
"Mastodon has its uses, but it isn't a real replacement."
Or the global community of people with some technical proficiency keeps developing Mastodon (or forks, or OSS replacements) so that it is a real replacement.
My stance on future Twitter-like proprietary social networks is clear and unequivocal: Never again.
Or the global community of people with some technical proficiency keeps developing Mastodon (or forks, or OSS replacements) so that it is a real replacement.
My stance on future Twitter-like proprietary social networks is clear and unequivocal: Never again.
> My stance on future Twitter-like proprietary social networks is clear and unequivocal: Never again.
It’s ran for over a decade, not a bad run. I’d very much be surprised if Mastodon instances last that long.
Decentralisation brings its own major issues, it’s not a silver bullet. Thinking that Mastodon-like services will take over is a pipe dream.
Proprietary services aren’t inherently bad as long as their business model aligns with your interests. The problem is that the current business model of social media is “growth & engagement”, not actual money from end-users. This means the relationship between the provider and the user is always adversarial and there’s an incentive to pull tricks like this so you steer users back into the malicious, official client to collect more data and/or harass them with dark patterns.
It is absolutely possible to build and operate a sustainable social media platform by charging a monthly token sum for the service. The only reason it’s not done nowadays is because there is no room for new players to enter - without interoperability either enforced by law (EU digital markets law?) or adversarial interoperability being made legal (the law is currently abused to prevent that), a new general-purpose social platform is a non-starter regardless of the underlying business model.
It’s ran for over a decade, not a bad run. I’d very much be surprised if Mastodon instances last that long.
Decentralisation brings its own major issues, it’s not a silver bullet. Thinking that Mastodon-like services will take over is a pipe dream.
Proprietary services aren’t inherently bad as long as their business model aligns with your interests. The problem is that the current business model of social media is “growth & engagement”, not actual money from end-users. This means the relationship between the provider and the user is always adversarial and there’s an incentive to pull tricks like this so you steer users back into the malicious, official client to collect more data and/or harass them with dark patterns.
It is absolutely possible to build and operate a sustainable social media platform by charging a monthly token sum for the service. The only reason it’s not done nowadays is because there is no room for new players to enter - without interoperability either enforced by law (EU digital markets law?) or adversarial interoperability being made legal (the law is currently abused to prevent that), a new general-purpose social platform is a non-starter regardless of the underlying business model.
> It’s ran for over a decade, not a bad run.
How much captive audience whinging have we had to endure in that time? Twitter bans Joe Blow. Twitter should ban Joe Blow. Twitter shouldn't have banned Joe Blow. Twitter bans third party app. Twitter has too many bots. Twitter doesn't have enough bots. Twitter censors subject X. Twitter drowned a puppy (allegedly). Twitter releases feature Y (finally). Twitter demands phone numbers for better ad surveillance. Twitter makes new release that totally fucks over the way you use it. Twitter should support my desired usage pattern. Twitter stops software from working on older devices. And so on ad infinitum.
The breath of fresh air, which is actually just how things were before the web 2.0 catastrophe, is that libre software and libre services escape that centralized crab bucket. If you want a feature go ahead and build it, or donate to those who did/will. Or just wait, because rather than being a tug of war over what one piece of software should do, many different ones can bloom.
If you want the features a centralized service can bring, use a large server that implements them, which will develop over time. And if it turns out they just develop the same monetization pathologies that Twitter had, you can easily move on without changing everything. The less costs to switching there are, the easier it is to go your own way. That's the benefit of an open protocol.
How much captive audience whinging have we had to endure in that time? Twitter bans Joe Blow. Twitter should ban Joe Blow. Twitter shouldn't have banned Joe Blow. Twitter bans third party app. Twitter has too many bots. Twitter doesn't have enough bots. Twitter censors subject X. Twitter drowned a puppy (allegedly). Twitter releases feature Y (finally). Twitter demands phone numbers for better ad surveillance. Twitter makes new release that totally fucks over the way you use it. Twitter should support my desired usage pattern. Twitter stops software from working on older devices. And so on ad infinitum.
The breath of fresh air, which is actually just how things were before the web 2.0 catastrophe, is that libre software and libre services escape that centralized crab bucket. If you want a feature go ahead and build it, or donate to those who did/will. Or just wait, because rather than being a tug of war over what one piece of software should do, many different ones can bloom.
If you want the features a centralized service can bring, use a large server that implements them, which will develop over time. And if it turns out they just develop the same monetization pathologies that Twitter had, you can easily move on without changing everything. The less costs to switching there are, the easier it is to go your own way. That's the benefit of an open protocol.
Any centralized, VC-backed service like Twitter is going to want to control the client UX.
Seems like what you should be asking for is Mastodon, but with performance improvements and improved search.
Seems like what you should be asking for is Mastodon, but with performance improvements and improved search.
Without centralized access to content, a distributed full search would seem unbearable slow at Twitter scale.
Remember the ancient times before chatgpt?
[deleted]
Well just found out most of the people I follow on Twitter are on Mastodon, I'm out.
I have the opposite problem. Almost no one I follow on twitter is on mastodon. But I really hate the first party client and all the toxic “trending items” for engagement.
Imagine if Elon builds his "x app" where everything about you is stored, your money, contacts, social networks and all of the sudden he wakes up on a random Tuesday and decide that he wants to ban everyone who hurted his feelings the day before.
I know him blocking access to third party apps might not be related but it sets a precendent (which already everyone knows) that doing business with him is not safe.
I know him blocking access to third party apps might not be related but it sets a precendent (which already everyone knows) that doing business with him is not safe.
If the issue is that 3rd party clients don't show ads, why not just require them to do so? Surely that's a better alternative than shutting them down completely.
Some 3rd party apps did mention before they would comply with such a rule if an ads API existed. But they don't exist and now with almost no dev left at twitter, it was unlikely to happen anyway.
"Allow 3rd party apps" should be a benefit of twitter blue, problem solved.
I asked myself this for a long time and I worked on a first party client for Twitter. Still don't have a good answer for this.
What are the chances Reddit goes down this path and kills the many amazing third-party clients? I absolutely love the one I use and detest the official Reddit app.
Reddit has learned a lasting lesson from Digg's self-destruct, that's why old.reddit.com is still around too. It's been over a decade so they might be starting to forget but perhaps the Twitter meltdown will be a good refresher. Don't piss off your core userbase.
old.reddit.com has been gradually accumulating minor bugs and quirks. I don't think this is due to anything other than simple neglect, but it would make sense as a deliberate strategy to gradually push people away from it without having a hard exit point like just shutting it down would.
Do you mean the markdown formatting, or other bugs?
Given the amount of users that use and evangelize Apollo for iOS (including myself), that might hurt Reddit more than the loss of third-party apps for Twitter.
Yeah the day Apollo is disabled is the day I stop using reddit basically… It’s so good using anything else is annoying.
Before Apollo, only Baconreader came close.
Before Apollo, only Baconreader came close.
Significant users are up in arms in the Apollo sub with the repeated ads shown on Pro users.
I hope reddit does the same as I really need to abolish that platform from my life and this would be the easiest way.
Not much. No one cares about Reddit that much, it doesn't have the ridiculous level of venture capital attached that forces leadership to short-term benefits only, and most importantly: Reddit caves when the mods of major subs do collective action. Twitter and FB have in house moderation, whereas Reddit is completely at the mercy of the volunteer mods.
I don't think this is true. Reddit is a corporation. If they decide they want to replace the mods in any sub with new mods they can do just that. There is no property ownership in the reddit domain. They just avoid doing so, but they can, just like how they shut down subs they don't want to see around. They do have control of the platform. The reddit mods are unpaid de-facto employees as they perform work on behalf of the corporation. I also suspect that some of them are actual employees of reddit.
Reddit does have access to capital, one of their owners is Tencent.
Reddit does have access to capital, one of their owners is Tencent.
I dunno there’s been some rumors “Anti-evil Operations” are building up to take over the role of moderators.
They did this already. They bought up AlienBlue about 10 years ago and shut it down.
I think anyone that is using a service for free by sidestepping the official client that has ads will eventually get a rude awakening. Especially if those 3rd party clients are making money from their users.
Wonder if they will use some of the IP they've built up to move into the Mastodon Client space. While there is already a nice crop of Mastodon clients, it seems like there is no dominant 3rd party client yet.
That is exactly what Tapbots has done with Ivory - Taking Tweetbot and using that as the basis for a Mastodon client. I've been using it for the past few weeks and it's fantastic https://tapbots.com/ivory
Honest question - I've been using Ivory for the past week but it doesn't seem to do anything that Metatext or the Mastodon app didn't already do. What's so fantastic about Ivory? I feel like I'm missing something because everyone speaks so highly of Ivory.
Thanks!
Thanks!
In my case, I've got years worth of Tweetbot muscle memory. Using different clients is... a little rough right now.
I haven’t used those apps, but I figure it doesn’t do anything those apps don’t do.
I just prefer Ivory’s UI. For me, it’s a nicer app to use.
I just prefer Ivory’s UI. For me, it’s a nicer app to use.
> Metatext
I do like Metatext but development is paused (repo is archived) - and notifications appear to have stopped working. I'll probably end up back on Toot! at some point.
(Tried building my own version from the repo but it breaks for some reason and I'm not an iOS dev who can figure out why.)
I do like Metatext but development is paused (repo is archived) - and notifications appear to have stopped working. I'll probably end up back on Toot! at some point.
(Tried building my own version from the repo but it breaks for some reason and I'm not an iOS dev who can figure out why.)
I'll have a go at building it and if I'm successful I'll let you know. I honestly thought a proper fork would have started by now but that is not the case.
I think posting an "Unlisted" toot was one of them, though I could be wrong. I don't have the official app nor Ivory to check this.
There was an opportunity here to open Twitter and position it’s API to become a message broker and discovery service. Have a heathy ecosystem of third party clients. Perhaps require users to have “Blue” subscription to use third party clients with some revenue share agreements.
The problem is that those people willing to pay for such a service are exactly those who advertisers are most interested in. If you have the disposable income to use an ad-hiding third party client for the cost of an extra subscription, they will outbid you in an effort to capture that income (and more) in their business instead.
So instead those users will just leave or use the web UI with a browser-based blocker.
This is an interesting approach, and there's always a possibility to reopen those APIs.
If I didn't know better, I'd be wondering if Musk was shorting Twitter's stock. Has anyone ever managed to do so much damage to a company in such a short amount of time?
Twitter is a private company; it’s basically impossible for him to do so.
And if a company officer is shorting the company’s stock, that sounds an awful lot like a breach of fiduciary duty.
And if a company officer is shorting the company’s stock, that sounds an awful lot like a breach of fiduciary duty.
Why would he short a stock that he already owns all the shares of? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
He doesn’t own all the shares. There is a slightly credible theory that he’s tanking the value so the debt value will fall and he can potentially buy it up on the cheap. The problem for Elon is that bankers aren’t idiots. If he tries to buy his own debt, they will absolute charge a premium or just push for bankruptcy wiping out the shareholders anyway.
Hence the "if I didn't know better" ... anyway, as someone else pointed out it's private now. It just has the appearance of self-sabotage.
People have long speculated that Musk found some way to profit off of running Twitter into the ground, since from day 0, that appeared to be his obvious strategy.
No one has yet found a way that he'll profit from Twitter's decline. So he's obviously doing what he thinks is best, it is seemingly going strongly in the opposite direction, but only time will tell how it ends up.
One thing's almost certain, he's not going to make money running Twitter into the ground.
No one has yet found a way that he'll profit from Twitter's decline. So he's obviously doing what he thinks is best, it is seemingly going strongly in the opposite direction, but only time will tell how it ends up.
One thing's almost certain, he's not going to make money running Twitter into the ground.
I really thought he was going to use Twitter to manipulate stocks or crypto values. Instead he's loudly rearranging furniture and I'm worried there's little more interesting than that going on.
Sad times. The third-party clients have always been _the_ way to access Twitter. One of my early favorites was Twinkle, made by Tapulous. It was pretty awesome, and even included searching for tweets from nearby users! This was pretty revolutionary and seriously fun in 2008. It helped us organized some Vancouver "tweetups" in 2008 and 2009.
(Of course most recently I had settled on TweetBot, which was an amazing iOS Twitter client)
Some stuff about Twinkle, since I didn't see anyone else talking about it:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080718210738/http://tapulous.c...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RSB2MT01BQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd4u-E5qmxE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_hxXOYIqrQ
(Of course most recently I had settled on TweetBot, which was an amazing iOS Twitter client)
Some stuff about Twinkle, since I didn't see anyone else talking about it:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080718210738/http://tapulous.c...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RSB2MT01BQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd4u-E5qmxE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_hxXOYIqrQ
This isn't the first time Twitter has done this, 3rd party apps used to be massive maybe 10 years ago until they made an API policy change abruptly. IMO the ecosystem never fully recovered from this. One service I enjoyed was "FavStar" which would allow you to find the best/funniest tweets or reward people for tweeting something good.
I’m sure it’s been said before but if Twitter wants to get away from advertising, this action seems like such a wasted opportunity.
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t seem all that difficult to have phased in an access fee for the API that’s charged to the app developers. There are lots of ways you could do this.
From Twitter’s perspective, they’d get all the advantages of the third party ecosystem while externalising the risk of moving to a paid model.
Twitter could have kept the “advertising supported” business to itself, at least for a while, while watching the competing apps settle on a price point.
I mean the data this would have given Twitter about monetisation would have been fantastic. And at some point they could have released their own paid version too.
Oh well. I suppose Elon knows what he is doing.
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t seem all that difficult to have phased in an access fee for the API that’s charged to the app developers. There are lots of ways you could do this.
From Twitter’s perspective, they’d get all the advantages of the third party ecosystem while externalising the risk of moving to a paid model.
Twitter could have kept the “advertising supported” business to itself, at least for a while, while watching the competing apps settle on a price point.
I mean the data this would have given Twitter about monetisation would have been fantastic. And at some point they could have released their own paid version too.
Oh well. I suppose Elon knows what he is doing.
It is very sad that mavericks kill good projects for their own benefit.
The sad thing is that third-party apps are actually good for twitter. Musk continues to cut his nose to spite his face.
Yes.
A lot of these users are just going away - not migrating to a different app.
A lot of these users are just going away - not migrating to a different app.
In what way are they good? How they provide revenue for twitter.
- Twitter could have turned the apps into a revenue opportunity (gate API access behind the paid Blue service for users, charge developers per user for API access)
- Twitter apps had the reputation at one point of being “UI playgrounds” — a good place for designers to experiment with different ideas around presentation of the feed; while Twitter didn’t directly benefit from it, these apps provided a massive amount of design iteration that enabled Twitter to steal the best ideas
- Twitter apps had the reputation at one point of being “UI playgrounds” — a good place for designers to experiment with different ideas around presentation of the feed; while Twitter didn’t directly benefit from it, these apps provided a massive amount of design iteration that enabled Twitter to steal the best ideas
Putting the API behind Twitter blue might not have worked. The paid badge has become a mark of derision amongst a portion of the user base.
It would go a long way towards making such a service acceptable ("I'm only paying for Blue for Tweetbot!"). The other option would be to charge developers for per-user access to the API, which developers could build into subscription payments (eg: Twitter could have charged Tapbots $2/user/month for access, so Tweetbot would have to charge their users $31+/year on iOS).
People are the product. If they are using the third-party apps they are producing content on the platform for others to engage with, which drives traffic to the site and allows for delivery of ads to others.
Just put the ads in their feed. Twitter makes no effort to target the ads as it is, so they can't be any less targeted.
Make no mistake, there are no benefits to Twitter doing things like this.
Having control on which ads are shown to users probably is one.
They never even tried to insert ads in to the API feed for third party clients.
> for their own benefit.
I'd question the 'benefit' bit; this seems clearly bad for Twitter.
I'd question the 'benefit' bit; this seems clearly bad for Twitter.
Are there any open-source options where I can have a non-algorithmic timeline with my own API key?
At this point, why spend your time contributing to a company which has made it clear that they don't care about you? I miss some of the Twitter community but I'm also keenly aware that my choosing to use the service helps their business and encourages people I know to do so as well.
Fritter supports this, and much more, without even needing an account or an API key! The beta version has a lot of nice features and a fresh UI.
https://fritter.cc
Disclaimer: I'm the creator of Fritter
https://fritter.cc
Disclaimer: I'm the creator of Fritter
I use Fritter and love it, thank you for your efforts! It's a great way to open Twitter links when necessary, since I've deleted the official app from my phone and I'm trying not to log in to my account for now.
Could you say a little about how Fritter works without an API key? Is it just because it isn't designed for posting or interacting with Twitter, just reading/viewing it? Why/how does Fritter still work when Twitterrific etc. are dead? Are you just, like, scraping the website? Isn't Twitter making it harder to read tweets from the open web when you're not logged in?
Could you say a little about how Fritter works without an API key? Is it just because it isn't designed for posting or interacting with Twitter, just reading/viewing it? Why/how does Fritter still work when Twitterrific etc. are dead? Are you just, like, scraping the website? Isn't Twitter making it harder to read tweets from the open web when you're not logged in?
Well you can get the linear non-algorithmic timeline in the official mobile app, works perfectly for the time being
On the web too. Plus you can use extensions to block ads, promoted junk, suggestions on who to follow, etc.
But none of it holds a candle to TweetBot or Twitterific.
But none of it holds a candle to TweetBot or Twitterific.
If you're on iOS/macOS, the developer of Tweaks for Twitter [1] has been keeping up with recent downgrades to the web UI. The version released today will hide the For You tab and always show the Following tab (plus blocking ads / promoted tweets etc etc).
no connection / satisfied user
[1] https://underpassapp.com/tweaks/
no connection / satisfied user
[1] https://underpassapp.com/tweaks/
That’s exactly what I’ve started using. The website is almost sort-of usable with it.
It's almost acceptable, except that there's no timeline sync between clients - personally for me it's a pretty big dealbreaker
Mastodon.
I've built TwitRiv that does exactly this. It is open source where you can use your own API key and then there is a hosted version (the hosted version would not use your own API key but you authenticate with OAuth2).
https://github.com/dashboardq/twitriv
https://twitriv.com/
https://github.com/dashboardq/twitriv
https://twitriv.com/
The Userscripts extension [0] and the user script version of Tweak New Twitter [1] (standard "I made this" disclaimer here) are both open-source, used on top of the web version that'll give you a forced non-algorithmic timeline (and more)
[0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/userscripts/id1463298887
[1] https://github.com/insin/tweak-new-twitter#tweak-new-twitter
[0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/userscripts/id1463298887
[1] https://github.com/insin/tweak-new-twitter#tweak-new-twitter
This is a stretch, but I wonder if Twitter is open to liability for summarily shutting down its third-party API access.
Is there any potential upside to suing?
Is there any potential upside to suing?
I'm quite certain the developer agreement has a "can be revoked at any time, for any reason" clause.
edit:
> Twitter may immediately terminate or suspend this Agreement, any rights granted herein, and/or your license to the Licensed Materials, at its sole discretion at any time, for any reason by providing notice to you.
Only possible wiggle room is they didn't do the "providing notice" bit.
edit:
> Twitter may immediately terminate or suspend this Agreement, any rights granted herein, and/or your license to the Licensed Materials, at its sole discretion at any time, for any reason by providing notice to you.
Only possible wiggle room is they didn't do the "providing notice" bit.
If this were the case, Apple would be sued monthly for all the Sherlocking.
You can get some Congresspeople to summon them for a hearing if you like.
So long and thanks for all the fish, it was one of the extremely few applications that were on my home screen, probably even the application installed the longest.
This really feels like the end of an era. Goodbye old friend!
Why has Twitter shut down the API?
Is it because third party clients don't show adverts and it is feeling the pinch?
Or for some other reason?
Is it because third party clients don't show adverts and it is feeling the pinch?
Or for some other reason?
We don't know, neither Twitter nor Musk have said a word about it (that I've noticed, anyway).
They never mentioned publicly, they never communicated it.
But you can likely guess that this is about ads.
But you can likely guess that this is about ads.
I don't think they actually shut down the API, they just revoked the API keys for popular third party apps. If you're using the API to build something other than a replacement for the official app, then I believe they still allow you to use it.
If they did shut down the whole API I was ready to make an argument about how public APIs can be costly to maintain because they're not used by first party software. But again, that's not the case, so I think we're left with the ads explanation.
If they did shut down the whole API I was ready to make an argument about how public APIs can be costly to maintain because they're not used by first party software. But again, that's not the case, so I think we're left with the ads explanation.
I’d guess Ads and it’s confusing the enhancements and rapid product development they are shipping.
Makes sense.
Makes sense.
Elon didn't know there were third party clients and immediately shut them off when he found out.
They also seem determined to show people the algorithmic timeline, so a client that actually listens to you would fight that.
They also seem determined to show people the algorithmic timeline, so a client that actually listens to you would fight that.
is sad to see it go
i'm glad nitter still works!
this sucks overall though.
this sucks overall though.
There was a quite moving exchange between Twitterrific and a customer earlier:
> Customer: This makes me so sad. Your iPhone app allowed me as a blind person to use Twitter so much better than the app that they themselves produce. Sorry for the hostility you are receiving from them, but know that you are appreciated for the hard work you’ve done.
> Twitterrific: Maybe the best thing anyone's ever told us. Thank you for this, truly. It is everything. Please take care.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RustyHilliard77/status/1616174474...
> Customer: This makes me so sad. Your iPhone app allowed me as a blind person to use Twitter so much better than the app that they themselves produce. Sorry for the hostility you are receiving from them, but know that you are appreciated for the hard work you’ve done.
> Twitterrific: Maybe the best thing anyone's ever told us. Thank you for this, truly. It is everything. Please take care.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RustyHilliard77/status/1616174474...
The problem facing Twitter 2.0 is that Musk is personally driving product development and he has essentially no empathy for users.
Can you blame him? He hasn’t needed it until now. His companies either specialize in binary-outcome engineering challenges (rocket flies/explodes) or products where Musk himself is the user, like a kid designing his own toys (and calling them “S/3/X/Y”). Turns out that a lot of people want to drive the car that he wants to drive himself, so he probably thinks this impeccable taste applies to any kind of product.
But Twitter, unlike a car, is used by hundreds of millions of people in thousands of completely different ways. He has no idea of what the experience is like for someone with only a handful of followers, or blind, or trans, or Algerian, or retired, a teenage girl, a suicidal anorexic, etc. etc. — and he doesn’t seem at all interested in trying to understand.
Can you blame him? He hasn’t needed it until now. His companies either specialize in binary-outcome engineering challenges (rocket flies/explodes) or products where Musk himself is the user, like a kid designing his own toys (and calling them “S/3/X/Y”). Turns out that a lot of people want to drive the car that he wants to drive himself, so he probably thinks this impeccable taste applies to any kind of product.
But Twitter, unlike a car, is used by hundreds of millions of people in thousands of completely different ways. He has no idea of what the experience is like for someone with only a handful of followers, or blind, or trans, or Algerian, or retired, a teenage girl, a suicidal anorexic, etc. etc. — and he doesn’t seem at all interested in trying to understand.
Yes, I can blame him.
It was reasonably obvious to other people - those who have and have not ran a rocket company - that running Twitter is different to running Tesla.
If you’re blindsided by your own ego, it’s your fault and you’re to blame.
It was reasonably obvious to other people - those who have and have not ran a rocket company - that running Twitter is different to running Tesla.
If you’re blindsided by your own ego, it’s your fault and you’re to blame.
A company with thousands of employees and the CEO is micromanaging developers.
I do not think that the problem is empathy.
It's about not understanding his role in the company. It's about not understanding collaboration, team work or leadership.
He does lack empathy, thou.
I do not think that the problem is empathy.
It's about not understanding his role in the company. It's about not understanding collaboration, team work or leadership.
He does lack empathy, thou.
I think these things you list, are what empathy is used for. (Among others.)
> A company with thousands of employees
Well to be fair, there's several thousand less employees now.
Well to be fair, there's several thousand less employees now.
> The problem facing Twitter 2.0 is that Musk is personally driving product development and he has essentially no empathy for users.
The problem facing Twitter 2.0 is that Musk is personally driving product development and 𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘯𝘰 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘺.
I fixed that for ya
The problem facing Twitter 2.0 is that Musk is personally driving product development and 𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘯𝘰 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘺.
I fixed that for ya
And for those who might argue that Musk has empathy for the survival of the future of humanity - (a) this isn't empathy by any technical definition, and (b) even if it was, and he was truly committed to it, his specific rash actions at Twitter are far from an optimal execution of any kind of strategy to ensure that survival.
> Can you blame him?
Absolutely. Good business owners know their limits and how to utilize people that have the skills they don't have. It doesn't matter if he "hasn't needed to do it before." He's an adult with multiple companies under his belt. He should absolutely know better and that fact that he doesn't is breaking trust consumers have with his ability to lead efffectively.
Absolutely. Good business owners know their limits and how to utilize people that have the skills they don't have. It doesn't matter if he "hasn't needed to do it before." He's an adult with multiple companies under his belt. He should absolutely know better and that fact that he doesn't is breaking trust consumers have with his ability to lead efffectively.
> Can you blame him?
Yes, chiefly so.
Yes, chiefly so.
"Not everybody is like me" would be the number 1, number 2 and number 3 advice I would give to anyone who's trying to start an online business. Like in a "How about you do that as a mantra for 10 hours a day" kind of way, because it's truly astonishing how many people don't get that.
So if you want to cut costs on sales and marketing in your startup, internalize that, because customer acquisition costs are directly related to your not understanding of that principle.
Good thing such a high profile influencer will hammer that point home!
So if you want to cut costs on sales and marketing in your startup, internalize that, because customer acquisition costs are directly related to your not understanding of that principle.
Good thing such a high profile influencer will hammer that point home!
> he has essentially no empathy for users
Mindreading much?
Mindreading much?
I don't think he is mindreading, just forming an opinion based on Elon's actions recently.
More like reading the room.
And somehow I don't think accessibility in the official Twitter app is about to get any better, having fired their accessibility team
https://twitter.com/owswills/status/1588625105101664256
https://twitter.com/owswills/status/1588625105101664256
Considering Musk fired all the engineers working on accessibility, I don't expect the official app to improve for the better anytime soon.
That's heartbreaking
[deleted]
It really is huge for people that need it, we should all try to remember this. When you include accessibility you're opening up a door for people who are constantly walking into doors they can't open.
[deleted]
fsckboy(6)
> We are sorry to say that the app’s sudden and undignified demise is due to an unannounced and undocumented policy change by an increasingly capricious Twitter – a Twitter that we no longer recognize as trustworthy nor want to work with any longer.
They just documented it. Another after-the-fact policy like @elonjet got.
https://www.engadget.com/twitter-new-developer-terms-ban-thi...
"The 'restrictions' section of Twitter’s developer agreement was updated Thursday with a clause banning 'use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.' The addition is the only substantive change to the 5,000-word agreement."
Anyone with a shred of empathy would've given devs advance notice of "we're destroying your business".
They just documented it. Another after-the-fact policy like @elonjet got.
https://www.engadget.com/twitter-new-developer-terms-ban-thi...
"The 'restrictions' section of Twitter’s developer agreement was updated Thursday with a clause banning 'use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.' The addition is the only substantive change to the 5,000-word agreement."
Anyone with a shred of empathy would've given devs advance notice of "we're destroying your business".
"long-standing API rules" indeed.
It's notable how that statement was just an absolute, unequivocal lie.
Most companies don't do that!
https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1615405842735714304
Most companies don't do that!
https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1615405842735714304
Here's what Musk said about Twitter an hour ago (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1616179085507702785):
> "Twitter is arguably already the least wrong source of truth on the Internet, but we obviously still have a long way to go.
> Enabling @CommunityNotes to operate at very large scale and providing maximum transparency about how Twitter works are fundamental to building trust."
It's maximum shamelessness.
> "Twitter is arguably already the least wrong source of truth on the Internet, but we obviously still have a long way to go.
> Enabling @CommunityNotes to operate at very large scale and providing maximum transparency about how Twitter works are fundamental to building trust."
It's maximum shamelessness.
>It's notable how that statement was just an absolute, unequivocal lie.
>Most companies don't do that!
I had the same thought, it's really weird right? Companies make statements that present themselves in a positive light and can really stretch language, that's not weird.
But companies don't usually go full "there are four lights", "The rules have always said this" and I don't see the point? Nobody believes this so why say it. "We shut down the API." by itself is better. Saying nothing might even be better.
This is like a lie a little kid might invent on the spot when caught breaking a rule. And the kid realizes how ridiculous it sounds right after they finished speaking.
I had the same thought, it's really weird right? Companies make statements that present themselves in a positive light and can really stretch language, that's not weird.
But companies don't usually go full "there are four lights", "The rules have always said this" and I don't see the point? Nobody believes this so why say it. "We shut down the API." by itself is better. Saying nothing might even be better.
This is like a lie a little kid might invent on the spot when caught breaking a rule. And the kid realizes how ridiculous it sounds right after they finished speaking.
Public companies are somewhat restricted from lying; anyone can be a shareholder and lying to your shareholders is securities fraud. (Everything is securities fraud.)
There is a conspiracy theory that Elon himself wrote that tweet, which IMO tracks.
It's hardly a conspiracy theory considering he boasted about writing the "This account may or may not be notable" text for the "legacy" (real) verification checks.
Let's hope Twitter puts the time machine up for auction (https://www.npr.org/2023/01/18/1149731084/twitter-office-sup...) someday.
[deleted]
> What Sarver said to developers today was direct: If you don't want to get burned, don't build pure-play Twitter clients. And if your app displays and sends tweets, make sure it looks and feels like Twitter.
> "Developers ask us if they should build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience," he wrote.
> "The answer is no."
Twitter to Devs: Don't Make Twitter Clients... Or Else [2011]
https://mashable.com/archive/twitter-api-clients
> "Developers ask us if they should build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience," he wrote.
> "The answer is no."
Twitter to Devs: Don't Make Twitter Clients... Or Else [2011]
https://mashable.com/archive/twitter-api-clients
That was never a rule, and they removed the last vestiges of the guideline entirely a couple years ago.
https://www.engadget.com/twitter-new-developer-terms-ban-thi...
> In fact, Twitter previously changed its developer policies in 2021 to remove a section that discouraged — but didn't prohibit — app makers from "replicating" its core service. The change was part of a broader shift by Twitter to improve its relationship with developers, including the makers of third-party clients.
The guidelines they introduced in 2011:
https://web.archive.org/web/20211105230857/https://developer...
See the section titled "If you create a service that replicates Twitter’s core experience or features you will be subject to additional rules beyond what is already included in the Developer Policy."
It very clearly permits clients like Tweetbot and Twitteriffic. It only applies additional conditions to them, which they've entirely complied with.
https://www.engadget.com/twitter-new-developer-terms-ban-thi...
> In fact, Twitter previously changed its developer policies in 2021 to remove a section that discouraged — but didn't prohibit — app makers from "replicating" its core service. The change was part of a broader shift by Twitter to improve its relationship with developers, including the makers of third-party clients.
The guidelines they introduced in 2011:
https://web.archive.org/web/20211105230857/https://developer...
See the section titled "If you create a service that replicates Twitter’s core experience or features you will be subject to additional rules beyond what is already included in the Developer Policy."
It very clearly permits clients like Tweetbot and Twitteriffic. It only applies additional conditions to them, which they've entirely complied with.
Everything you're saying is absolutely true. The idea that cutting off third-party clients is something radical or something twitter didn't desire to do a long time ago is laughable.
All of the people gloating about how much Musk overpaid when he was forced to buy their favorite thing should have expected that as a result he'd have to do anything to squeeze revenue out of it.
> That was never a rule, and they removed the last vestiges of the guideline entirely a couple years ago.
I wasn't aware that traces of this guideline lasted until just a couple of years ago.
All of the people gloating about how much Musk overpaid when he was forced to buy their favorite thing should have expected that as a result he'd have to do anything to squeeze revenue out of it.
> That was never a rule, and they removed the last vestiges of the guideline entirely a couple years ago.
I wasn't aware that traces of this guideline lasted until just a couple of years ago.
> The idea that cutting off third-party clients is something radical or something twitter didn't desire to do a long time ago is laughable.
It's not at all radical, and if it'd been done with a month's warning, I think there'd have been grumbling but that'd be about it.
Destroying a number of small businesses without warning (and letting them swing in the wind for a week waiting for a "why", and lying about them breaking "long-standing" rules) in this nature was entirely unnecessary, and is what has generated the backlash.
It's not at all radical, and if it'd been done with a month's warning, I think there'd have been grumbling but that'd be about it.
Destroying a number of small businesses without warning (and letting them swing in the wind for a week waiting for a "why", and lying about them breaking "long-standing" rules) in this nature was entirely unnecessary, and is what has generated the backlash.
Absolutely agree. It's chaotic, but the reason Musk owns all of these big companies was because of luck and financial prowess, not any talent for management.
lol - richest man on the planet is where he is because..... luck.
Right.
Right.
He is the second richest person in the world after shedding over $200 billion in net worth.
pvg(1)
"Finally, if you were subscriber to Twitterrific for iOS, we would ask you to please consider not requesting a refund from Apple. The loss of ongoing, recurring revenue from Twitterrific is already going to hurt our business significantly, and any refunds will come directly out of our pockets – not Twitter’s and not Apple’s. To put it simply, thousands of refunds would be devastating to a small company like ours."
So a company builds a system that sits on another system to do a thing, charges for a thing, shuts down that thing, and then asks their customers to not ask for a refund for the thing on the thing that is broken...seems a bit....icky
So a company builds a system that sits on another system to do a thing, charges for a thing, shuts down that thing, and then asks their customers to not ask for a refund for the thing on the thing that is broken...seems a bit....icky
I strongly disagree. Their product’s “reliance” on an external system wasn’t just some incidental reckless dependency. It’s a Twitter client, so it’s i here fly “reliant” on Twitter. It’s not unlike someone selling a book about how to use Twitter’s API, then politely asking people to not ask for refunds for the book years later when Twitter shuts down its API.
> we would ask you to please consider not requesting a refund from Apple
If I pay for something and don't get the promised value why should I be the one who eats it?
This is going to hurt the dev but that's business and I'm sure their bank balance is doing just fine. Appealing to the users like this feels unfair.
If I pay for something and don't get the promised value why should I be the one who eats it?
This is going to hurt the dev but that's business and I'm sure their bank balance is doing just fine. Appealing to the users like this feels unfair.
It was a request and not a demand, if you value the service the dev provided the community more than the money, you might not refund it, otherwise, presumably you will. Recently I had a pizza come an hour and a half late because the restaurant was swamped, and I'd already gotten hungry and eaten something else. I tipped the same amount as I would have otherwise because the tip, in my mind, isn't about rewarding great service, it's about providing a livelihood to the employees. (Were things different for restaurant workers, I might feel differently, but in the current incarnation stiffing someone a tip isn't denying them a bonus, it's denying them a wage.)
I don't see how your pizza example really applies, though. You tipped because you (unfortunately correctly) recognize that the service industry and how payroll taxes work is incredibly broken, and that tips are an integral part of wages.
But we're talking about a company that provided a service that people were paying for, and now no longer provides that service. Any unused portion of any subscription bought should absolutely be refunded. It's actually a bit gross that the company is not pro-actively refunding subscriptions. They made a bet that Twitter's API would always remain available to them; it's not on their customers to bear any cost for the failure of that bet.
But we're talking about a company that provided a service that people were paying for, and now no longer provides that service. Any unused portion of any subscription bought should absolutely be refunded. It's actually a bit gross that the company is not pro-actively refunding subscriptions. They made a bet that Twitter's API would always remain available to them; it's not on their customers to bear any cost for the failure of that bet.
The relationship, in my mind, is that I valued their livelihood and the service they'd provided me; what I'm saying is that some people may feel the same about Twitterific. I'm not arguing that anyone should abstain from requesting a refund, I'm illustrating why they might.
I don't object to a customer voluntarily deciding to toss a "parting tip" to Twitterific on their way out. I object to Twitterific not, by default, offering pro-rated refunds.
(It does seem from other responses here that doing so is just not possible on Apple's payments platform. That's pretty lame of Apple, IMO, but oh well.)
(It does seem from other responses here that doing so is just not possible on Apple's payments platform. That's pretty lame of Apple, IMO, but oh well.)
That's nice of you but objectively the tip actually is for rewarding great service. If Amazon sent you half a book would you value the half they sent you and be grateful? And here's a tip for you Jeff.
The tip is for underwriting the livelihood of people who work in a terrible industry that does not pay them a livable wage. Yeah, it's not your fault that the economics of the food service industry work like this in the United States, but that doesn't mean you can ignore them.
Ostensibly the tip is about service. Realistically the tip is about "doing your part" to give service workers a reasonable wage. Is it a terrible system? Sure. But let's not pretend.
I hope no one ever kicks you when you’re down. You might want to consider extending others the same grace.
They aren't some poor dev struggling to eat and pay bills, they've been one of the most popular third party Twitter apps for 15 years. They are not down.
They'll be down if everyone asks for a refund and they wind up losing years worth of revenue.
If everyone asks for a refund, won't they wind up losing some fraction of one year's worth of revenue?
They'll be slightly less rich, but still considerably more rich than most of us.
You seem to know a lot about the economics of being an indie app developer and consulting firm. You should share more about how much cash they must be rolling in.
Too bad? The idea that we should treat companies that stop longer providing a product as charities deserving of free money is a bit silly.
Twitterific built their business on something that we often acknowledge here as being very shaky: the whim of a third-party platform. If the company hasn't considered and prepared for the scenario where that third-party platform completely cuts off your access, that's irresponsible as a business owner.
Twitterific built their business on something that we often acknowledge here as being very shaky: the whim of a third-party platform. If the company hasn't considered and prepared for the scenario where that third-party platform completely cuts off your access, that's irresponsible as a business owner.
You have to ignore an awful lot of kicked down people to start donating to recently-employed developers.
I too enjoy demanding refunds from my purchases on the App Store and then redistributing those dollars to the unhoused folks I encounter outside of Starbucks.
"Please consider"
Is just an appeal and makes the choice clear.
Likely, some customers that did purchase it have received some value; It's likely the difference between needing to claim bankruptcy protection and quietly dissolving
Is just an appeal and makes the choice clear.
Likely, some customers that did purchase it have received some value; It's likely the difference between needing to claim bankruptcy protection and quietly dissolving
I don't have a relationship with this company, but reading their "Please consider" line immediately gave me a bad impression of them.
They're a software business that relied on a third-party platform for their entire business model. It genuinely sucks that this business model has been yanked out from under them, but this is something they should have planned for (especially considering Twitter's past actions around their API and developer program), without a lame request to their now-former customers to give them free money for no service provided.
I'm sure some customers will, out of the excessive goodness of their hearts, riding on the good experience they had over the years with the app, honor that appeal. That's certainly their choice. But it's also reasonable for the rest of us to think that the appeal alone feels a bit dirty.
They're a software business that relied on a third-party platform for their entire business model. It genuinely sucks that this business model has been yanked out from under them, but this is something they should have planned for (especially considering Twitter's past actions around their API and developer program), without a lame request to their now-former customers to give them free money for no service provided.
I'm sure some customers will, out of the excessive goodness of their hearts, riding on the good experience they had over the years with the app, honor that appeal. That's certainly their choice. But it's also reasonable for the rest of us to think that the appeal alone feels a bit dirty.
For what it’s worth, 100% agree with you. I’m sorry for what’s happened to this dev - must be gutting - but why on earth should their customers be the ones to bear the loss of not getting to use what they paid for?
Either way, and I am absolutely not in a position to draw any conclusion about any customer who requests or does not request a refund.
Let's hope that other people see it differently and have a more empathic response. I get what you are trying to communicate but realize that this was done without their control and in a way that instantly destroyed their business as it was. If you pile on and ask for a refund then you are making things much worse for them, and you did get value out of it in the past. The 'promised value' has been delivered, your beef is with Twitter, not with the developers.
Assumptions about their bank balance and 'that's business' are the wrong way to approach this.
Assumptions about their bank balance and 'that's business' are the wrong way to approach this.
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I wouldn't refund a one off app purchase, but this is an ongoing subscription
given this, it was certainly within their control to attempt to negotiate a contract with their only supplier and then they would have contractual guarantees about not being summarily cut off
(would musk have cut them off? probably, but then they could go after him)
without that the business model was always based on chance
they knew this, and continued to sell the product regardless
given this, it was certainly within their control to attempt to negotiate a contract with their only supplier and then they would have contractual guarantees about not being summarily cut off
(would musk have cut them off? probably, but then they could go after him)
without that the business model was always based on chance
they knew this, and continued to sell the product regardless
Having an app key issued counts as permission in my book. Subscription refunds should be limited to the period during which service was not provided.
And good luck negotiating anything with a billion dollar company, they'll be happy to stiff you if they want to but in the meantime you are beholden to the terms of the contract. This because they typically have legal staff and you probably don't so there is a huge asymmetry in any kind of legal tussle with them.
And good luck negotiating anything with a billion dollar company, they'll be happy to stiff you if they want to but in the meantime you are beholden to the terms of the contract. This because they typically have legal staff and you probably don't so there is a huge asymmetry in any kind of legal tussle with them.
There's a difference between canceling your subscription and getting a refund. A small company the size of the Iconfactory might not have the cash on hand to even issue full to everyone who might ask for it. If my annual subscription just renewed in December, they might have already spent that money on salaries, rent, health insurance, etc. Since Twitterific has been removed from the App Store there wont be any subscription renewals, but if they have to (over the next week) issue hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds, it really could end the company.
That’s a very good point. Why not negotiate a deal over the past 15 years, why leave their customers and company hanging on a key invalidation.
Because that's how Twitter set it up. As a developer you play by their rules, and you can just about forget negotiating an exclusive deal that would reduce the company's rights and increase yours without paying for it.
You might be right, but your comment comes across as cold blooded.
Absolutely. And this is a mere request from them, not something they can actually tell their customers. Apple is the sole judge on whether you shall receive a refund. The actual maker is not involved in that process.
It's still kinda gross, IMO. Twitterific should be pro-actively refunding customers for the unused portion of their subscriptions, without users having to request one from Apple.
Twitterific made a bet that the Twitter API would remain available to them. They should be the ones assuming the risk and taking on the consequences of losing that bet. Not their customers.
Twitterific made a bet that the Twitter API would remain available to them. They should be the ones assuming the risk and taking on the consequences of losing that bet. Not their customers.
> Twitterific should be pro-actively refunding customers for the unused portion of their subscriptions...
It's my understanding that Apple doesn't offer this feature.
It's my understanding that Apple doesn't offer this feature.
This is correct, they couldn't do it if they wanted to.
Sometimes Apple Dev Relations will help out and mass refund without making all the users request a refund, but they don't always (even when the developer asks).
Sometimes Apple Dev Relations will help out and mass refund without making all the users request a refund, but they don't always (even when the developer asks).
So you'd try to get a refund on your beach vacation if it rained?
To be ultra charitable, if I bought a subscription for the app as a brand new customer and the very next week, Twitter revoked their API keys and kills the app entirely, yea I’m probably asking for a refund.
If I had been a customer for years and years, obviously my calculation would be different.
If I had been a customer for years and years, obviously my calculation would be different.
This feels a bit more like the power & water was cut off to the beach house, but I like taking metaphors one step to far.
The basic point is that no-one pays for a Twitter client expecting it to keep working if (say) Twitter closes down or pivots into a rideshare company or decides to close down third-party access to the platform. On any reasonable viewpoint that's a risk accepted by the purchaser, not the app seller.
But Twitter did not close down or pivot into a rideshare company.
Yes, they did close down third-party access to their platform, but that is completely not the same as those other things you mention.
I doubt most Twitterific customers have any idea what a third-party API platform is, let alone Twitter's shady history with how they've treated API developers. Your average Twitterific purchaser probably just thinks it's a premium Twitter app that lets them do Twitter things, and would expect that app to continue working as long as Twitter exists. (Which it still does!)
> On any reasonable viewpoint that's a risk accepted by the purchaser, not the app seller.
If your definition for "reasonable" is actually the definition of "unreasonable", sure. Twitterific's customers should not have to take on the consequences of the risk that Twitter would shut down third-party access to their API. That is a risk that Twitterific took on themselves as a risk to their business, and they should have a plan for what to do in this case. And that plan should not be "beg our customers to pay us for not providing a service anymore". It should include them pro-actively refunding the unused portions of any subscriptions (super gross that they didn't do this, double-super gross that they're begging for "donations"), and then responsibly winding the company down (assuming they don't have any other still-viable products that could keep them going). It sucks that they'd have to do this, but that's what can happen when you bet your business on someone else's platform.
Yes, they did close down third-party access to their platform, but that is completely not the same as those other things you mention.
I doubt most Twitterific customers have any idea what a third-party API platform is, let alone Twitter's shady history with how they've treated API developers. Your average Twitterific purchaser probably just thinks it's a premium Twitter app that lets them do Twitter things, and would expect that app to continue working as long as Twitter exists. (Which it still does!)
> On any reasonable viewpoint that's a risk accepted by the purchaser, not the app seller.
If your definition for "reasonable" is actually the definition of "unreasonable", sure. Twitterific's customers should not have to take on the consequences of the risk that Twitter would shut down third-party access to their API. That is a risk that Twitterific took on themselves as a risk to their business, and they should have a plan for what to do in this case. And that plan should not be "beg our customers to pay us for not providing a service anymore". It should include them pro-actively refunding the unused portions of any subscriptions (super gross that they didn't do this, double-super gross that they're begging for "donations"), and then responsibly winding the company down (assuming they don't have any other still-viable products that could keep them going). It sucks that they'd have to do this, but that's what can happen when you bet your business on someone else's platform.
I keep reading your responses on this topic and nodding my head more and more vigorously. I really do feel for the devs, but also seems like they had a good run - really, about as long of a run as anyone can expect reasonably have in this space. Better than most, certainly.
If you bought a 12 month subscription to Netflix and they closed down next week are you honestly saying you wouldn't be asking for a refund?
It doesn't matter that its an app for Twitter, you've paid for someone to provide something they can no longer deliver.
It doesn't matter that its an app for Twitter, you've paid for someone to provide something they can no longer deliver.
If I bought a Netflix subscription, I'd expect them to provide the Netflix service. If I bought a TV with a Netflix app on it, I wouldn't expect a partial refund from the people who sold me the TV. Do you honestly not see these two things are different?
One is "I paid for a service" and the other is "I paid for something to help me use a service".
One is "I paid for a service" and the other is "I paid for something to help me use a service".
Terrible analogy. If I buy a TV that has smart features or apps on it, I'm only marginally paying for the apps. It's even possible that Netflix is paying the TV manufacturer in order to be in the default install, so I'm not even paying for the apps; possibly I'm even paying slightly less for the TV than I otherwise would. (Even if that's not the case, that doesn't really change the calculus for me.)
So, no, if Netflix disappeared in this case, I would not ask for a partial refund. The TV still works as a TV, and that's what I really paid for in the first place. (If Netflix didn't disappear, but the TV app stopped working, I might be -- justifiably -- annoyed, though!)
This Twitterific thing is in no way comparable: the app only interacts with Twitter. That's its entire reason for being. If it can't do that, then it is worthless, and anyone who paid for it is perfectly in their rights to demand a refund. Hell, the Twitterific folks should be pro-actively refunding the unused portions of subscriptions; that's the only ethical thing to do here.
So, no, if Netflix disappeared in this case, I would not ask for a partial refund. The TV still works as a TV, and that's what I really paid for in the first place. (If Netflix didn't disappear, but the TV app stopped working, I might be -- justifiably -- annoyed, though!)
This Twitterific thing is in no way comparable: the app only interacts with Twitter. That's its entire reason for being. If it can't do that, then it is worthless, and anyone who paid for it is perfectly in their rights to demand a refund. Hell, the Twitterific folks should be pro-actively refunding the unused portions of subscriptions; that's the only ethical thing to do here.
Did you ever own a dial-up modem? Was its only purpose for being that you logged into your ISP with it? Did you consider trying to get a refund when your ISP stopped providing dial-up service?
Yes, I did own a dial-up modem. In addition to connecting to my ISP, I spent many years connecting to various local BBSes. The ISP wasn't the only reason I had the modem.
And, regardless, if my ISP stopped providing dial-up service, and I really still wanted dial-up service, I would have simply found another ISP to connect to. (After expecting my previous ISP to issue me a pro-rated refund for whatever subscription I was paying them.)
Also regardless, your analogy is bad, as the modem was a one-time cost. The issue at hand is that of recurring subscription fees Twitterific charges. If we were just talking about a one-time cost to buy the Twitterific app, I wouldn't be suggesting the refund that cost (except to customers who just bought the app right before the shutdown, perhaps; seems shitty to keep customer money when the product irreparably breaks a few days after purchase).
And, regardless, if my ISP stopped providing dial-up service, and I really still wanted dial-up service, I would have simply found another ISP to connect to. (After expecting my previous ISP to issue me a pro-rated refund for whatever subscription I was paying them.)
Also regardless, your analogy is bad, as the modem was a one-time cost. The issue at hand is that of recurring subscription fees Twitterific charges. If we were just talking about a one-time cost to buy the Twitterific app, I wouldn't be suggesting the refund that cost (except to customers who just bought the app right before the shutdown, perhaps; seems shitty to keep customer money when the product irreparably breaks a few days after purchase).
Dial up was an on-demand pricing model, not a subscription. By your own rules that doesnt work.
Now, if you had dial up and paid a subscription for access to a free phone number and they cut you off before your subscription ended, then yes you absolutely would expect a refund.
Now, if you had dial up and paid a subscription for access to a free phone number and they cut you off before your subscription ended, then yes you absolutely would expect a refund.
Lets try this another way.
You bought a display that exclusively integrates into Netflix, it can only display Netflix content, but you have to pay an annual fee to the display manufacturer for it to continue working.
It's January and you've just paid your annual subscription. But on the 15th of Jan Netflix decides to stop allowing your display manufacturer access, and your display becomes a useless brick.
Having only just paid for your annual subscription you'd want a refund - you're no longer getting access to the service you were paying for.
We can keep coming up with anologys but the fact remains that the app developer guaranteed access to a service which they can no longer provide. It doesn't matter if its an app, a display, or anything else. Your agreement is with the app developer, not Twitter. Your payments go to the app developer, not Twitter. If the app developers entire business is built around hoping Twitter never closes off their access then thats totally on them when things go south.
You bought a display that exclusively integrates into Netflix, it can only display Netflix content, but you have to pay an annual fee to the display manufacturer for it to continue working.
It's January and you've just paid your annual subscription. But on the 15th of Jan Netflix decides to stop allowing your display manufacturer access, and your display becomes a useless brick.
Having only just paid for your annual subscription you'd want a refund - you're no longer getting access to the service you were paying for.
We can keep coming up with anologys but the fact remains that the app developer guaranteed access to a service which they can no longer provide. It doesn't matter if its an app, a display, or anything else. Your agreement is with the app developer, not Twitter. Your payments go to the app developer, not Twitter. If the app developers entire business is built around hoping Twitter never closes off their access then thats totally on them when things go south.
You've straw-manned this. Netflix and Twitterific are the same thing: you pay a subscription and you expect to receive value in return.
If the terms for that vacation purchase included guarantees of good weather, definitely.
Just as if I buy an app (or a subscription to one), I expect the app's author to guarantee that it functions for its intended purpose, and return my money if it doesn't.
Just as if I buy an app (or a subscription to one), I expect the app's author to guarantee that it functions for its intended purpose, and return my money if it doesn't.
It simply isn’t possible for any third party client to offer that kind of guarantee. Doesn’t matter what agreements you negotiated. Any large enough platform will just do it anyway and deal with the litigation.
It was blatantly obvious to any buyer that these clients could only work so long as Twitter allowed it. This wasn’t a hidden risk, so anyone buying a subscription was implicitly accepting that risk as part of their purchase.
It was blatantly obvious to any buyer that these clients could only work so long as Twitter allowed it. This wasn’t a hidden risk, so anyone buying a subscription was implicitly accepting that risk as part of their purchase.
> It simply isn’t possible for any third party client to offer that kind of guarantee.
And that's exactly my point! Twitterific should have known that Twitter could pull the rug out from under them at any time, and had a plan to make their customers whole in that eventuality.
Look, I'm not saying a company in their position should have to refund a one-time purchase cost of the app itself (for companies that do that sort of thing). But if you are charging an ongoing subscription for continuing service, and then that service terminates before the end of the subscription period, I think a pro-rated refund is more than fair.
Hell, if Twitter themselves charged a subscription fee for having a Twitter account, I would expect them to give pro-rated refunds to customers if they decided to wind down their business or pivot to something else. Twitterific should be no different here.
And that's exactly my point! Twitterific should have known that Twitter could pull the rug out from under them at any time, and had a plan to make their customers whole in that eventuality.
Look, I'm not saying a company in their position should have to refund a one-time purchase cost of the app itself (for companies that do that sort of thing). But if you are charging an ongoing subscription for continuing service, and then that service terminates before the end of the subscription period, I think a pro-rated refund is more than fair.
Hell, if Twitter themselves charged a subscription fee for having a Twitter account, I would expect them to give pro-rated refunds to customers if they decided to wind down their business or pivot to something else. Twitterific should be no different here.
iOS App Store developers cannot issue a pro-rated refund. Apple has not provided any mechanism for them to do that, despite requests.
This has been stated again and again but you’re choosing to ignore it in your attempt to make the app developers the bad guys in this situation.
This has been stated again and again but you’re choosing to ignore it in your attempt to make the app developers the bad guys in this situation.
The customer was accepting that risk. Just as the developer was accepting the risk that they'd be expected to provide a refund on a subscription that isn't going to work anymore.
Sure, and if those happen then the developer will eat the cost. They've only asked people politely not to, given the extraordinary circumstances, not said that people cannot.
The companies providing third party clients had already renegotiated their relationship with Twitter over the past few years, achieving a more stable baseline, API changes, defined escalation routes, etc. Musk's buying of the company and capricious shutting down of third parties without even having the option of having them do things like incorporate adverts is hardly something it was possible to plan for over the long term.
The companies providing third party clients had already renegotiated their relationship with Twitter over the past few years, achieving a more stable baseline, API changes, defined escalation routes, etc. Musk's buying of the company and capricious shutting down of third parties without even having the option of having them do things like incorporate adverts is hardly something it was possible to plan for over the long term.
You are minimizing the situation with your metaphor. It's more like if you arrived at the house and they told you that you can't get in at all. Would you ask for a refund?
No; my metaphor is quite precise. You're renting the beach house because it helps you enjoy the good weather while sitting on the sand. However, the beach house owner isn't responsible for providing the good weather: only the house itself. The beach house owner isn't in control of the weather, and you knew that at the time you rented.
Not to further beat the horse that is thoroughly bloodied and unrecognizable, but I’d say this is more like having the water and power shut off and the furniture repossessed on the first day of a week-long stay.
Maybe legally, ethically, morally, the renters are SOL, but for me personally, I’m not sure my sympathies would lie with the landlord in that situation.
Maybe legally, ethically, morally, the renters are SOL, but for me personally, I’m not sure my sympathies would lie with the landlord in that situation.
If the app was actually usable for 18 days in January, it doesn't make sense for users to ask for a full refund for the January subscription charge.
Wouldn't a fair solution be to offer a partial refund, proportional to time that subscribers paid for but are unable to use?
Wouldn't a fair solution be to offer a partial refund, proportional to time that subscribers paid for but are unable to use?
Yes, absolutely. But instead of Twitterific reaching out to their customers and pro-actively doing that, they're lamely asking their customers to give them free money because their assumptions about their business risk turned out to be incorrect.
They can’t issue a refund, it’s not allowed by the App Store. Only customers can request refunds.
Would you also claim your money back if Twitter closed down? If your logic became reality you could kiss goodbye to any third-party client for any type of network service. The Twitter clients are not at fault here. It's 100% on Twitter/Musk.
It doesn't matter who is at fault, ultimately. If you pay for a service, you expect that service to be provided. If you pay to use an app for 30 days, and suddenly you can only use it for 15 days, through no fault of your own, the company should refund you half of what you paid.
Regarding fault: Twitterific absolutely shares responsibility here. They built an app and service that depended on the whims of a third-party service that they could not guarantee perpetual access to. They should have had a plan for what to do if they lost API access... and not a plan that begs their paying customers for charity.
Regarding fault: Twitterific absolutely shares responsibility here. They built an app and service that depended on the whims of a third-party service that they could not guarantee perpetual access to. They should have had a plan for what to do if they lost API access... and not a plan that begs their paying customers for charity.
> I'm sure their bank balance is doing just fine
Source?
Source?
Small business whose significant chunk of income just evaporated asking to be nice with them seems fair.
Fair to who? If you're going to pay for a product you aren't receiving, I'm sure you could find a better recipient. Every charity would love to sell you nothing.
Small business who built their business on the whims of a third-party API platform, without any means to guarantee they'd have perpetual access to that platform. It's on them to ensure that their business model works, not by asking their customers for charity when it doesn't.
> If I pay for something and don't get the promised value why should I be the one who eats it?
Why should the developer? It would be wrong to say "You won't get a refund" but that's not what they're doing.
Why should the developer? It would be wrong to say "You won't get a refund" but that's not what they're doing.
Because I paid them for something and I'm not receiving it? This isn't a hard concept.
That EM likes to burn bridges does not change the nature of your transaction with Twitterific. You did not pay for access to Twitter: you paid for an app that you received. Asking for a refund is ... questionnable.
No, you're paying a continuing subscription for an app that lets you interact with Twitter. If that app stops letting you interact with Twitter, then you absolutely are entitled to a refund of the remaining portion of the subscription.
If Twitterific was a one-time purchase and not a subscription service, I would absolutely agree that refunds are probably not warranted. (Though someone who bought the app yesterday might feel differently.)
It's flat-out gross that the Twitterific developer isn't pro-actively giving pro-rated refunds to their customers, and is instead asking for charity.
If Twitterific was a one-time purchase and not a subscription service, I would absolutely agree that refunds are probably not warranted. (Though someone who bought the app yesterday might feel differently.)
It's flat-out gross that the Twitterific developer isn't pro-actively giving pro-rated refunds to their customers, and is instead asking for charity.
> It's flat-out gross that the Twitterific developer isn't pro-actively giving pro-rated refunds to their customers, and is instead asking for charity.
Please explain the mechanism by which an App Store app developer can provide pro-rated refunds. You seem so confident about your claim that the company could be and should be doing this, that I’m sure this is something you’ve already checked and verified.
Please explain the mechanism by which an App Store app developer can provide pro-rated refunds. You seem so confident about your claim that the company could be and should be doing this, that I’m sure this is something you’ve already checked and verified.
> Because I paid them for something and I'm not receiving it?
But that's not a response to my comment. I'm asking why the developer, who has expenses of his own, should cover for the actions of Twitter. In the absence of an explicit promise related to this, the customer was taking a risk that Twitter would do something like this. There is no good argument that either party should have to cover for Twitter's actions.
But that's not a response to my comment. I'm asking why the developer, who has expenses of his own, should cover for the actions of Twitter. In the absence of an explicit promise related to this, the customer was taking a risk that Twitter would do something like this. There is no good argument that either party should have to cover for Twitter's actions.
The developer should cover for the actions of Twitter because they decided to build their business on top of Twitter, fully reliant on Twitter's goodwill around API access. They are the one who took on that risk, and it's irresponsible and unethical to push the consequences of that risk onto their own customers.
Their average customer doesn't know or care about API platforms. They just want to access Twitter via a nice, premium app they paid for. If they can no longer do that, they deserve a refund of the remaining unused value of their subscription.
Their average customer doesn't know or care about API platforms. They just want to access Twitter via a nice, premium app they paid for. If they can no longer do that, they deserve a refund of the remaining unused value of their subscription.
Erm, that isn't how the real world works. I'm not entering into an agreement with Twitter when I pay for a Twitterific subscription, I'm entering into an agreement with Twitterific. They are responsible for fulfilling the subscription for which I am paying, not Twitter. If they are unable to then it doesn't matter why, they have still broken the agreement. This is simple business.
The developer gets the upside of building a successful business and takes the downside of making business decisions that turn out to be misguided, no?
To put it another way - if the shareholders had had a nine-figure exit, would they have planned on sharing that with their customers?
To put it another way - if the shareholders had had a nine-figure exit, would they have planned on sharing that with their customers?
But: you did receive it. You received it immediately when you paid for it. And you've used it in the meantime and presumably derived value from it otherwise you would have asked for a refund immediately upon delivery.
Precisely.
I wouldn't judge anyone who bought it a month ago for asking for a refund, but if you've been using the app since 2019 or something, you got what you paid for, for years.
I wouldn't judge anyone who bought it a month ago for asking for a refund, but if you've been using the app since 2019 or something, you got what you paid for, for years.
Does Apple give refunds for four-year old app downloads?
It's a $9.99 annual subscription. The fact they are not automatically refunding the part of the year that wasn't provided is offensive.
They can’t. The App Store head never had any mechanism for developers to initiate refunds in any way, let alone partial refunds.
You’re raging against these guys for not doing something that they have no ability to do. Hardly fair.
You’re raging against these guys for not doing something that they have no ability to do. Hardly fair.
Good question. Anything over 90 days I would see as unreasonable.
So anyone getting a refund is probably a recent purchaser.
I don't know because I don't know the App store rules for these refunds. But if they do allow longer refunds it should have massive repercussions for any App store developers that want to stay in business in the longer term if they are basing their App on someone else's API, even with permission.
I think people are talking about refunds of (pro-rated unused portions of) ongoing subscriptions, not refunds for paying a one-time app store fee.
That functionality would have to be created for this particular situation, which I highly doubt Apple can even do at this point (and google likely can't either).
For an industry that makes as much money as it does some people appear to be extremely petty about this, if you could afford the app to begin with you can afford to be gracious about it. If you have any beef it is with Elon Musk, not with Twitterific.
For an industry that makes as much money as it does some people appear to be extremely petty about this, if you could afford the app to begin with you can afford to be gracious about it. If you have any beef it is with Elon Musk, not with Twitterific.
> That functionality would have to be created for this particular situation, which I highly doubt Apple can even do at this point (and google likely can't either).
Wow, really? "Refund remainder of 1-year subscription that started on X date and ended prematurely on Y date" seems like a pretty basic feature of a payments system. The inability to do that says more about Apple (or Google) than it does anyone else.
> If you have any beef it is with Elon Musk, not with Twitterific.
I don't have a beef with either, as I don't use my Twitter account, and didn't purchase Twitterific.
People who bought Twitterific and pay for a subscription don't have an ongoing business relationship with Twitter/Musk, they have one with Twitterific. When the company you pay for a subscription service stops providing that service -- for whatever reason, even reasons outside their control -- the right thing to do is for the company to refund the rest of the subscription.
Wow, really? "Refund remainder of 1-year subscription that started on X date and ended prematurely on Y date" seems like a pretty basic feature of a payments system. The inability to do that says more about Apple (or Google) than it does anyone else.
> If you have any beef it is with Elon Musk, not with Twitterific.
I don't have a beef with either, as I don't use my Twitter account, and didn't purchase Twitterific.
People who bought Twitterific and pay for a subscription don't have an ongoing business relationship with Twitter/Musk, they have one with Twitterific. When the company you pay for a subscription service stops providing that service -- for whatever reason, even reasons outside their control -- the right thing to do is for the company to refund the rest of the subscription.
Yeah, it was hard to believe what I was reading there. Building something that can't stand alone as a product without a 3rd party API is always a big risk for a developer. When it blows up, should not be made the customers problem.
Especially when Twitter has been mostly assholes around API access for almost a decade now. I was shocked they didn't turn it off well before Elon bought 'em.
Having said that, it is pretty crappy to just shut it off without any definitive guidance - Elon or not.
I think there are two key questions here:
(1) Exactly what did the user pay for?
If it's an app that promises to provide access to Twitter, then I'd think the app developer is responsible for making the necessary arrangements with Twitter to uphold that promise.
If it's an app that promises to make a best-effort attempt to use Twitter's public APIs, then a refund doesn't sound reasonable.
(2) Should the user consider this a simple business relationship, or something more personal? I.e., even if a case could be made for a refund, should that matter?
(1) Exactly what did the user pay for?
If it's an app that promises to provide access to Twitter, then I'd think the app developer is responsible for making the necessary arrangements with Twitter to uphold that promise.
If it's an app that promises to make a best-effort attempt to use Twitter's public APIs, then a refund doesn't sound reasonable.
(2) Should the user consider this a simple business relationship, or something more personal? I.e., even if a case could be made for a refund, should that matter?
Something more parasocial more like it.
Remember, if Musk puts you out of work, you're a refugee, but if anyone else puts you out of work, you're merely unfortunate.
Remember, if Musk puts you out of work, you're a refugee, but if anyone else puts you out of work, you're merely unfortunate.
> We are sorry to say that the app’s sudden and undignified demise is due to an unannounced and undocumented policy change by an increasingly capricious Twitter – a Twitter that we no longer recognize as trustworthy nor want to work with any longer
I understand that many people are angry about recent Twitter changes. This rightly so, because many 3rd party apps are obviously a huge time investment and people have bought apps. This seems unjust.
However, with all the recent disclosures about Twitter shadowbanning, deboosting, deamplifying, banning, and viewpoint censoring, I cannot help but feel that Twitter has always been capricious.
It is only now that we are recognizing it : the unfortunate reality that a private company controls a defacto public square.
I understand that many people are angry about recent Twitter changes. This rightly so, because many 3rd party apps are obviously a huge time investment and people have bought apps. This seems unjust.
However, with all the recent disclosures about Twitter shadowbanning, deboosting, deamplifying, banning, and viewpoint censoring, I cannot help but feel that Twitter has always been capricious.
It is only now that we are recognizing it : the unfortunate reality that a private company controls a defacto public square.
You’d have to agree that the current owners are “controlling the defacto public square” a magnitude less than the previous ones. I don’t think asking a tiny % of twitter users to use their products interfaces instead of third parties is very controlling, but shadow banning, and censoring topics is incredibly.
> You’d have to agree that the current owners are “controlling the defacto public square” a magnitude less than the previous ones.
I think they are both controlling, but yes, the current regime appears much more viewpoint neutral.
> I don’t think asking a tiny % of twitter users to use their products interfaces instead of third parties is very controlling, but shadow banning, and censoring topics is incredibly.
Disagree here, because tools are built upon this. So, it might be more accurate to say Twitter 3rd party Devs & Twitter Ecosystem Devs, not users.
I think the viewpoint controlling and censoring is more so; HN does some of the same things I am afraid to see (yes, to a much smaller audience, but same tactics).
I think they are both controlling, but yes, the current regime appears much more viewpoint neutral.
> I don’t think asking a tiny % of twitter users to use their products interfaces instead of third parties is very controlling, but shadow banning, and censoring topics is incredibly.
Disagree here, because tools are built upon this. So, it might be more accurate to say Twitter 3rd party Devs & Twitter Ecosystem Devs, not users.
I think the viewpoint controlling and censoring is more so; HN does some of the same things I am afraid to see (yes, to a much smaller audience, but same tactics).
Right from the bird’s mouth, which by the way, they created, not Twitter…
“Since 2007, Twitterrific helped define the shape of the Twitter experience. It was the first desktop client, the first mobile client, one of the very first apps in the App Store, an Apple Design award winner, and it even helped redefine the word “tweet” in the dictionary. Ollie, Twitterrific’s bluebird mascot, was so popular it even prompted Twitter themselves to later adopt a bluebird logo of their very own. Our little app made a big dent on the world!”
And “pull-to-refresh”? Tweetie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull-to-refresh