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Comment by rsynnott | Hacker News Reader

It's worth noting that we've been here before; back in 2012 Twitter attempted to curtail third party clients (albeit in a far more organised, less haphazard way): https://thenextweb.com/news/twitter-4

Eventually, they stepped back from the brink, presumably after realising that it was a phenomenally stupid idea (while the fraction of Twitter users using third party clients is likely small, anyone who's anyone uses a third party client; this will vastly disproportionately hit influential users). We'll see if new leadership learns the same lesson.

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I was the creator of Twidroyd (First and biggest Android Twitter app w/ ~70% marketshare) and there was a larger story behind the first big anti-3rd party move. Basically we had some plans to bring users over to a new network after we got acquired by Idealab — and Twitter got wind of it. Think Mastodon 2010 style.

Uhh, need more details! What happened?

Twidroyd was one of my frequently used clients back when I had a Nexus phone, along with Seesmic client.

Nexus was already a Mercedes phone. We started when there wasn't even a physical device on the market.

Juicy story. I'm all ears.

This sounds fascinating, would love to hear more?

I wrote a paper on you and a couple of other third-party Twitter clients in undergrad on the importance of modern day brand preservation and protection for an integrated marketing class while this was playing out. In a roundabout way, you kind of helped me get an A in that class! :D

Lol, speaking of brand protection, there's even a reason why the app had to be renamed to ...droyd from ...droid.

The word “droid” is trademarked by Lucasfilm

That's not the "droid" you are looking for.

Naming your app as a portmanteau of two trademarked brand names is certainly brave!

E.g.: https://www.reuters.com/article/idIN341190544020111017 https://allthingsd.com/20111017/bill-gross-new-social-networ...

Has there been any interest in telling this story in any rich medium (podcast, long form article, 30 minute youtube video, documentary, netflix series). Not only does that sound super interesting, but now that most/all of Twitter Execs have moved on - I wonder if you'd be able to get Twitter's side of the story as well.

Twitter was a different shop back then — You could literally jump on a call with Ev et al (and even humans at Google when it came to Android) but while significant decisions were made at the time, it's nothing more than a melancholic blip in tech history. Strangely enough, I'm working on a new product in this space but it won't touch Twitter's API for sure :)

And Facebook 2007(?)-style: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interopera...

That's even what caused the creation of App.net (as a social network): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net

At the time I backed it at the developer tier as soon as the crowdfunding campaign was available and keep fond memories of it.

I really enjoyed using App.net for the brief time it flourished.

there have been a handful of App.nets created in the last couple of months (Post, Spoutible, Hive, T2, et cetera). they'll all probably suffer the same fate too.

This wikipedia list will be there for them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_social_network...

The proper term is, of course, Apps.net.

Wow I remember that.

> We'll see if new leadership learns the same lesson

We'll see if new leadership is capable of learning any lesson at all

Narrator: They are not.

I wouldn't be surprised if Elon blocks access to apps like Tweetbot since they don't serve ads and therefore provide no revenue to Twitter (and users are unlikely to quit Twitter altogether because of it). An alternative route would be to allow third-party apps as one of the "features" of a paid Twitter account--that actually makes some sense. In fact, I'd be surprised if Musk didn't do something like this.

In 2012 Twitter did not have as established a user base as it does today esp among media, companies, politicians, influencers, celebrities, so there's less risk of dropping third-party clients than there was back then.

> users are unlikely to quit Twitter altogether because of it

I don’t think this is true at all. If Tweetbot doesn’t come back I doubt I’ll ever use Twitter again; the website is unusable garbage by comparison. And I think a lot of the most influential power users who drive engagement feel the same way.

Are you an influential power user with tens/hundreds of thousands of followers? If not, then Twitter won't care whether you stay or go.

Here’s an example of those users:

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/01/13/end-nigh-for-th...

I already gave up after the jounopurge (well, I returned for one final poorly-received joke after mentioning prehistoric elephant-like things became thoughtcrime), but if I hadn’t left for ethical reasons, I’d be gone now; I’ve been using Tweetbot for about a decade and find the official web and mobile client borderline unusable.

Twitter's audience in 2012 was significantly smaller. A far higher percentage of users are using the official apps now.

> this will vastly disproportionately hit influential users)

Maybe within the tech space, but again, Twitter's userbase has expanded outside of tech.

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