It's amazing how much devs want to build on top of Twitter. There's got to be an opportunity for Twitter to monetize that instead of fighting it and pissing everyone off. Why can't they just have some reasonable fees for API access?
Agreed, and speaking personally, I would love to pay Twitter $XXX/month, especially if it included some form of "we'll reply to X emails within an hour" support.
The fact that they're not even charging $20/month for minimal API access is baffling to me. I'd expect it'd only help reduce spam as well!
The devs who experiment and make something cool are often worth more than the minimal charge.
However I would agree that rather than having arbitrary limits using devs as a revenue stream makes sense (give everyone a portion of what you currently allow and allow payed upgrades)
Exactly - there are plenty of options available.
The devs who experiment and make something cool are often worth more than the minimal charge.
I'm just wondering how many such developers would be put off by such a relatively small charge?
Obviously, the situation now is very different to when Twitter was still building momentum.
I'm just confused that they don't come out and say "From the 1st of May, we will be charging all new API accounts for access."
It's like (snail) mailing someone a bill for $0.25.
No one in their right mind would want to support the Twitter or Facebook API's...
This could be done sensibly though: limit the number of emails per month; or only include support in higher-priced plans.
eBay's API can be pretty tricky at times, and if you want any help that doesn't involve using their forums, it costs $75/hour:
I think employees would be happy to support an API, if it is a revenue producing product.
There are people making millions using these APIs now with no support. Why would charging them $25/month suddenly require support?