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Comment by josh2600 | Hacker News Reader

Are you surprised?

Why don't we all go back to AOL and Geocities. The problem with Twitter is that it is not clear exactly what their approach to their revenue problem might be. I understand they want to monetize their API but does that go hand-in-hand with quashing every potential competitor who happens to use the API with a modicum of success?

I'm bearish about any company that builds a data warehouse on the basis of access and open-ness and then decides to restrict that access at a later date for the sake of profitability. It's just distasteful and speaks volumes.

This is a great example of why you should never build a business on Twitter: http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2013/03/04/how-twitter-came-to...

Partnering with Twitter is still quite reasonable, but creating an Enterprise based upon their APIs is foolish at best.

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I wouldn't touch Twitter without a contract signed by my company and by Twitter. Any attempt to utilize their content consumers for anything other than reading content you produce has been shown to be at extreme risk of termination.

I don't believe Twitter doesn't know how they are going to generate revenue. I'm not convinced they can actually implement their ideas, but, if they had no ideas, I think they would be letting other companies throw themselves at the wall, then picking off the ones that stick via acquisitions. That they just squash them implies they think they know what they are doing.

You are right. I'm going through this exact same thing with the reddit api and chrome app store.

A lot of api providers seem to have a few limited (mostly lame) use cases in mind. Developers by their nature are creative boundry pushers. Conflict is inevitable.

I just wish api providers would take greater care in thinking about and describing what exactly is going to be allowed and not. Rather than putting something out there, having developers throw things at the wall, then banning things you don't like after the fact.

But they don't, it's a painful lesson to learn.

> Rather than putting something out there, having developers throw things at the wall, then banning things you don't like after the fact.

I would think that being able to operate that way is exactly the reason you want to offer an API. So that your users can come up with ideas for you. Trying to anticipate up front every conceivable use of an API and publishing it with a huge list of rules based on conjecture makes for a pretty crappy API.

Uneditreddit?

Yeah.

First I used the reddit api, when reddit cut that off I was able to crowdsource a data feed from users through a browser extension.

Then reddit convinced google to have unedditreddit removed from the app store. I switched to a firefox extension now so we will see what happens.

Why don't they just charge for this? You want to setup an in-stream payment solution? Great here is the API - its .10 each time its called (or whatever).

Further, why does twitter make it hard to pay them for API use?

maybe because it would turn twitter into a cheap looking barrage of pay links.

I also would not pay for sex with my girlfriend if she would start all over sudden start charging me for sex. It seems twitter has to learn something about relationships.

You'd also be foolish to assume a hooker that charms you is your girlfriend and will have sex with you for free.

Your analogy is incorrect.

But that's just hearsay and conjecture -- we don't know it was turned off for "profitability" reasons or whatever. In fact Ribbon's blog indicates that Twitter was very receptive to the idea: http://blog.ribbon.co/an-update-on-in-stream-payments-on-twi...

Further, we haven't heard Twitter's side to this -- was there a violation of the TOS that the Tech bloggers didn't catch (or bother finding the other side of the story?)

Essentially you're jumping the gun in saying that Twitter is two-faced ("They say they're open but they're really not") all based upon no data or concrete evidence.

> Essentially you're jumping the gun in saying that Twitter is two-faced ("They say they're open but they're really not") all based upon no data or concrete evidence.

Yes because I can't think of any other examples where Twitter has screwed developers.... Oh wait....

Yes, there might be a TOS issue here (and maybe even a valid one) but their track record makes it pretty clear that they just don't give a shit about developers.

We have heard Twitter's side: they turned off the service.

> I'm bearish about any company that builds a data warehouse on the basis of access and open-ness and then decides to restrict that access at a later date for the sake of profitability. It's just distasteful and speaks volumes.

They have changed their terms for third party integration about 2 years ago (somebody correct me) and since then strongly discourage third parties from trying to leverage Twitter for their own profit. Anyone seriously betting on getting away despite the publicly expressed discouragement from 2 years ago is getting what is to be expected.

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