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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

How long will this realistically continue to work? APIs change all the time. The second there is a backwards incompatible change pushed out to their servers (which could happen tomorrow) you are out of luck. There is also possibly code out there already which says to only allow older clients up to a certain minimum date or version.

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Of course. But the "old" version I've installed is still very recent, July 2023, and I'd assume there are a ton of devices out there still running that build and even older builds with no way to update. They could cut old versions off, but they would be cutting off a lot of users.

When I did this in 2016 for eBay and Google Inbox I got a year out of each.

For this Twitter app, I'll enjoy it whilst it lasts. I'm a glass half full kind guy.

When it comes to Twitter there's an added risk of getting your account banned because of it.

Nice bit of FUD there.

Not exactly FUD given Elon's history of yeeting anyone who annoys him.

While I agree that Elon is petty enough to ban when slighted, it seems to me that simply running an older client version has too many other probable reasons to be clearly interpreted as personal insult.

My point is new Twitter/X routinely bans people for no actual rule breaking what so ever. The inmates are running the asylum.

> My point is new Twitter/X routinely bans people for no actual rule breaking what so ever

Twitter before Musk didn't routinely ban people for no actual rule breaking?

No, they really didn’t.

One could reasonably argue that in some cases they were stretching the meaning of a rule, but they didn’t just arbitrarily ban users.

Heck, if there was one thing the Twitter Files actually showed it was the massive amount of debate and discussion and fretting that the powers at Twitter spent over most of their decisions.

Which is a fine and true point, but still distinct from Twitx banning people for no reason, chaotically.

Nothing FUD about pointing out Musk's consistently petty nature

Twitter had always been notorious for banning high profile users, and turning total blind eyes on sock puppets and ban evasions(justified because bans make no sense in the first place, and probably because support have no time to reinstate everyone). That hasn't changed.

> They could cut old versions off, but they would be cutting off a lot of users.

Modern Twitter doesn't seem to particularly care about this factor.

FWIW, I'm still using a copy of the Twitter app from circa 2021.

Nice to see your name pop up. Cheers to you, Jay!

I saw your tweet asking what version I am using; it is 8.61 and it does support Spaces (which maybe you don't want for some reason ;P).

"APIs change all the time."

What changes more frequently: (a) APIs or (b) public web pages. How could we test the correctness of the answer.

(I know which answer I would choose, based on experience, but I'm curious what others think.)

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