Twitter Projects Are Heading for the Scrapheap as the Company Shuts Down Its Free API

Social media service Twitter has announced that it is to shut down the free tier of its application programming interface (API) within a week — and replacing it with a paid-for API which is expected to be priced well above the budget of most hobbyists and tinkerers.

Twitter, founded in 2006, offered an unusual approach to social networking: "microblogging," in which uses were asked to jot down their thoughts in no more than 140 characters — later extended to 280. The service soon became available through an application programming interface (API) that attracted third-party developers — not only those looking to create alternatives to the official software clients but hackers and tinkerers aiming to use Twitter for their own projects.

Over the years we've seen Twitter-enabled robotic arms, belt buckles, and Christmas trees, Twitter clients for devices as unlikely as the Palm Pilot and the Psion Organizer II, as well as vintage computing emulators that accept programs via tweet and reply with the results. The ease with which Twitter can be integrated into projects made it ideal for everything from notification broadcast to command and control — but, with new chief executive Elon Musk at the helm, those days are coming to an end.

"Starting February 9," Twitter announced this week, "we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead. Over the years, hundreds of millions of people have sent over a trillion Tweets, with billions more every week. Twitter data are among the world's most powerful data sets. We're committed to enabling fast & comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us."

At the time of writing, the company had not confirmed pricing for the new entry-level tier of API access — though former-world's-richest-man Musk, who recently led a $44 billion fund to purchase Twitter and take the company private and is desperately attempting to monetize the platform as it faces massive interest payments on its newly-acquired debt, has suggested that a price point of "just" $100 a month would help to remove "bot scammers & opinion manipulators" from the site.

The move comes shortly after the company shut off the majority of third-party client software with zero advance notice — leaving those who had built their own businesses around offering better, more flexible, or more portable software than Twitter's official clients completely adrift. Shutting the free API tier will further lock people out of the platform.

With the free tier shutting off on February 9, those whose projects currently run on Twitter will be left adrift or face a hefty bill — or may choose to move to an alternative service, such as the ActivityPub-powered and fully open-source Mastodon, which has recently become the front-runner in the race to provide a real alternative to a Twitter becoming less usable by the day.