If the App Store had been free for 15 years and then Apple said "if you don't pay us $100 a year in one week, we'll delete your app" then you can bet that Tim Cook would be seeking new opportunities _within hours_. There's a big difference between "this has always cost something" and "this is going from free to paid with _one week's notice_".
I don't see how third party developers are additive to Twitter in the same way they're additive to Apple at all. If that's true at all, why would Twitter provide services for free? Why would Apple charge at all? (Especially from the beginning).
It's a hard comparison because the value of the Apple ecosystem is so obvious and mutual. Twitter is junk on both sides; unless as a third party dev you just happened to find value in it, in which case you should pay for it.
I understand this is hurting peoples feelings, but it makes complete sense to me from all angles.
> I don't see how third party developers are additive to Twitter in the same way they're additive to Apple at all.
When did you start using Twitter? Twitter as we know it today is largely a product of the community and third party developers. Retweets, hashtags, quote tweets, the use of a blue bird symbol; all came from either the community at large or specific third party devs. The fun bots also drive a lot of twitter engagement; honestly they're the only real thing I miss on Mastodon (while some of the most important ones did come across, a lot didn't). Third party software also makes Twitter a support system, a status reporting system... The list goes on.
However, beyond all that, even if there was a good argument for killing the API free tier (there is not), no-one sensible would do it with _one week's notice_. This will alienate even commercial users who would be willing to pay. If you're using your CRM's twitter integration to track customer complaints, say, unless you're huge the free API is probably sufficient today. With one week's notice, even assuming you hear about it the first day (most will not) good look getting a purchase order for the API within a week if your company is even remotely bureaucratic (most are).
The patron saint of Dunning-Kruger presumably thinks it's a good idea, but can't imagine anyone else does.
> the advertisers have lost one extra person to sell to
Which is aligned with Musk's strategy thus far, but there's also a good argument to be made that that product should have never been needed if twitter was providing a decent first party client. They should have wanted to provide that to control the advertising. Letting the third parties take that up was a poor strategy -- business-wise that is, I get that people may have liked it and have used it for a long time and are probably sad to lose it.
> I don't see how third party developers are additive to Twitter
Then you're not in the community in which the third party elements(e.g. tweet aggregation, SSO login, fine grained access control) are vital part of. Which may be substantial, or not, and we as the sheep don't know.
You're right and I'm my sheepish hypothesis here is it's not substantial. I think twitter is largely a toy, if it were to completely vanish tomorrow, very little harm would actually be done to anyone. It's like a PMF question, does twitter have third party developers banging on their door with fists full of cash? No, they have a bunch of freeloaders that have built derivative toys.
