Twitter recently announced they will no longer support free access to the Twitter API. Everyone seems up in arms about it and I can’t figure out what an API even is. What would doing something like this actually affect?
I’ve tried looking up what an API is, but I can’t really wrap my head around it.
Edit: I’ve had so many responses to read through and there’s been a ton of helpful explanations! Much appreciated everyone 🙂 thanks for keeping this doofus in the know
In: 419
Let’s simplify things and say we can interact with Twitter in two ways: reading posts and making posts. You can go to Twitter (either the website or the app) and do either of these things.
However, have you ever seen Twitter posts shown on other websites or apps? Have you ever posted on Twitter from within another app? Those websites or apps talk to Twitter on your behalf, but they aren’t Twitter themselves.
When third parties communicate with your target on your behalf like this, they use what’s called an API, which is just a common language on how to do the things you want (read posts or make posts in this case).
If Twitter makes its API paid, every website or app that wants to show you posts or make posts on your behalf would have to pay that fee.
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