I got an error that I can't follow any more people (I follow around 3000 people), never got this before. Twitter is becoming an absolute shit show of product and company.
- Free API continues until Feb 13 instead of sunsetting tomorrow
- $100 paid tier grants access to Ads API, which is where promotion and scheduling of Tweets happen. So this will become a necessary but minor expense for brands, influencers, and third parties that cater to them.
- Free API access will continue to be available but users will be limited to 1500 tweets/month.
This actually strikes me as a rational compromise that will bring in a few million $ a month in revenue with significantly disrupting the development/research/comedy bot ecosystem. Bad for spammers and shit-tier brands, both of whom deserve to suffer anyway.
> This actually strikes me as a rational compromise that will bring in a few million $ a month in revenue with significantly disrupting the development/research/comedy bot ecosystem.
A few millions a month is peanuts compared to what Twitter actually needs, which is measured in billions per year. Was it worth the negative publicity and reinforcing the image that Twitter is unsteady and that policy is changed day to day by a flailing attention-addicted teenager? The end result might sound reasonable, but the process to get there was anything but.
100$/Mo is a lot for most and Twitter is relatively easy to scrape and script.
I'd imagine this move will probably not earn Twitter any considerable amount of profits as Twitter is weirdly heavy app and new lazy web scrapers/bots will drain all of those 100$ sales.
For some context, currently there are two ways to scrape/automate twitter outside of the official API since it's a heavy JS-only web app:
- run a real script-controlled browser (using something like Playwright/Selenium/Puppeteer).
- reverse engineer their backend graphql API.
The former is super easy to do but since it runs a full web browser it's expensive resource-wise as it loads everything a normal web user would load (unless configured explicitly not to). The latter is much more efficient but not accessible for most developers as Twitter's backend is pretty complex.
I'm seeing this accidental glimpse into a future where the only content on Twitter is paid content as a gift. I've had trouble quitting Twitter, but it looks like Twitter's got no problem quitting me.
DMs are erroring for me, and the Android native app just tweets into the void. This issue seems to be roughly aligned with the announcement that paid accounts will have a 4000 character limit. As expected, status.twitter.com suggests Twitter is, in green-colored text, operational.
Same for me, I wasn't "addicted" to Twitter, but I did spend an amount of time on it that I often regretted.
Elon managed to completely cure this in a few months. Between the constant bugs, the erratic changes, the slowness of the site, getting logged out randomly and being banned at one point for what I can only see as me tweeting a link to my mastodon account, I don't even have the site in muscle memory anymore.
I got a weird message about "you are following people too much, only 4000 allowed" . I think I follow like 30 people or so lol. They are definitely looking into limiting people who aren't cash cows. They are overlooking the thing that makes twitter twitter, but keep accelerating that spiral.
A lot of non-knowledgable folks expected twitter to immediately collapse after firing half their engineers. Instead, this is what that kind of failure looks like. Functionality starts to become flaky, some non operational entirely. You can't rely on the status page anymore. Innovation rapidly plateaus. Quality of service suffers on the whole.
I've had a bug on Twitter iOS for nearly a year where if I'm on cellular network it cannot connect. I can go to the website fine using desktop user agent but the app will not load tweets. All other apps work fine. The app starts working again when I get on a wifi network.
Shameless plug: I created a browser extension to help transition to Mastodon[0]. If you don't yet feel like you can leave twitter.com, but want to explore alternatives it's a great way to get started. Essentially it injects Mastodon posts into your Twitter timeline, so you can retain your existing Twitter following while getting exposed to Mastodon.
This isn't because of some policy, it's some sort of error. I can't even post on an account (via the app) I haven't been active in in months but unlike the web browser it simply fails. DMs also don't load.
As of today I'm getting a message saying that I can't follow more people. I'm only following ~2000 people and have more followers than following. I've tried unfollowing a number of accounts but still can't follow more.
Twitter is starting to feel very broken in ways that seem counter productive to growth and daily usage.
Twitter is probably toast, which really is too bad. It was a huge source of joy and friendship and learning for me over the years. But stuff like this is leaving the door wide open for others to figure out how to do real time + video + micro blogging.
Dear brilliant tech-obsessed entrepreneur…this could be you.
Hmm... It's interesting that it's not particularly clear whether this is a failure or policy change. Twitter's intentional changes don't look a whole lot different than outages. (And their communication is so poor we can't tell from that either.)
Tweetdeck is also down if you're set to the non-preview interface, stuck in a loop of login and instant logouts.
The Tweetdeck Preview works (and you can access this by clearing all cookies) but keeps hitting a rate limit.
I hope the rumors of TweetDeck becoming a premium feature are not true - I could never hope to catch everything without use of all those columns at once.
Can Musk please stop actively killing twitter already.
I know people say just move away, but for certain communities (I'm not even talking about small communities: like in Japan, all the people from individuals to companies to artists post and only post all the updates on Twitter), Twitter is the only place to follow the news. I don't need anything fancy I just need it to work.
Is there a version of this which shows a plan like in The Producers, where Elon appears, in good faith, to ruin Twitter until it goes bankrupt, absolving him of having to pay them back?
[+] [-] lamontcg|3 years ago|reply
I think this is a write/posting outage/incident.
Firing everyone seems to be working out well for stability.
[+] [-] VWWHFSfQ|3 years ago|reply
> You are over the daily limit for sending Tweets.
What absolute shitshow is going on at Twitter?
[+] [-] jeffbee|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kimbernator|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ews|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] topspin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|3 years ago|reply
Key points:
- Free API continues until Feb 13 instead of sunsetting tomorrow
- $100 paid tier grants access to Ads API, which is where promotion and scheduling of Tweets happen. So this will become a necessary but minor expense for brands, influencers, and third parties that cater to them.
- Free API access will continue to be available but users will be limited to 1500 tweets/month.
This actually strikes me as a rational compromise that will bring in a few million $ a month in revenue with significantly disrupting the development/research/comedy bot ecosystem. Bad for spammers and shit-tier brands, both of whom deserve to suffer anyway.
[+] [-] kergonath|3 years ago|reply
A few millions a month is peanuts compared to what Twitter actually needs, which is measured in billions per year. Was it worth the negative publicity and reinforcing the image that Twitter is unsteady and that policy is changed day to day by a flailing attention-addicted teenager? The end result might sound reasonable, but the process to get there was anything but.
[+] [-] wraptile|3 years ago|reply
I'd imagine this move will probably not earn Twitter any considerable amount of profits as Twitter is weirdly heavy app and new lazy web scrapers/bots will drain all of those 100$ sales.
For some context, currently there are two ways to scrape/automate twitter outside of the official API since it's a heavy JS-only web app:
- run a real script-controlled browser (using something like Playwright/Selenium/Puppeteer).
- reverse engineer their backend graphql API.
The former is super easy to do but since it runs a full web browser it's expensive resource-wise as it loads everything a normal web user would load (unless configured explicitly not to). The latter is much more efficient but not accessible for most developers as Twitter's backend is pretty complex.
[+] [-] Aperocky|3 years ago|reply
It makes no sense whatsoever seeing what twitter have become.
[+] [-] leviathant|3 years ago|reply
DMs are erroring for me, and the Android native app just tweets into the void. This issue seems to be roughly aligned with the announcement that paid accounts will have a 4000 character limit. As expected, status.twitter.com suggests Twitter is, in green-colored text, operational.
[+] [-] rsynnott|3 years ago|reply
As is well-known, no service will ever switch its status page to red unless people moan about it on Twitter first. So, well, you can see the problem.
[+] [-] AJRF|3 years ago|reply
Elon managed to completely cure this in a few months. Between the constant bugs, the erratic changes, the slowness of the site, getting logged out randomly and being banned at one point for what I can only see as me tweeting a link to my mastodon account, I don't even have the site in muscle memory anymore.
Thanks Elon!
[+] [-] lost_tourist|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alfalfasprout|3 years ago|reply
Rome didn't fall in a day.
[+] [-] AustinDev|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinzollars|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wnevets|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pyuser583|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rcarmo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dom96|3 years ago|reply
[0] - https://chirper.picheta.me
[+] [-] partiallypro|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eat_veggies|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lrae|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] radicalbyte|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] outworlder|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] samb1729|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] postingawayonhn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterhil|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dzhiurgis|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ivanvanderbyl|3 years ago|reply
Twitter is starting to feel very broken in ways that seem counter productive to growth and daily usage.
[+] [-] izzygonzalez|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onion2k|3 years ago|reply
Just like millions of other people.
[+] [-] navanchauhan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ncr100|3 years ago|reply
Sounds like the clock for rate-limiting is improperly centralized, in my speculation.
[+] [-] iambateman|3 years ago|reply
Dear brilliant tech-obsessed entrepreneur…this could be you.
[+] [-] janoc|3 years ago|reply
Couldn't think of a better way to kill the user retention and engagement.
Well done, Twitter!
[+] [-] jmull|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jyriand|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boastful_inaba|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrdbndndn|3 years ago|reply
I know people say just move away, but for certain communities (I'm not even talking about small communities: like in Japan, all the people from individuals to companies to artists post and only post all the updates on Twitter), Twitter is the only place to follow the news. I don't need anything fancy I just need it to work.
[+] [-] sillysaurusx|3 years ago|reply
I haven’t tested it, and it doesn’t seem to work for replies (no way to schedule those) but it seemed worth mentioning.
EDIT: Twitter seems up now. https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1623454832257548288
[+] [-] johnchristopher|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] projektfu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mholt|3 years ago|reply
I'm now over the limit for sending tweets.
(I pay for Twitter Blue)
[+] [-] shaunxcode|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sangnoir|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] squegles|3 years ago|reply