At first glance, reining in the developers making money from Twitter’s data might seem like the most obvious, least problematic policy decision the company could make. Twitter’s data belongs to Twitter. People who don’t work for Twitter are using it to make money. Why shouldn’t Twitter eliminate those people and make all the money itself?
The potential problem is equally simple, however. A lot of people use third-party apps. Per TechCrunch, more than six million regular Twitter users interact with the service at least partly through a third-party program. As Engadget reports, some apps remove unwelcome ads or make other quality of life changes that appeal to a subset of Twitter users. Rather than switching to mainstream Twitter, the company may well lose those customers outright.
Engadget also notes that, prior to Elon Musk’s takeover, Twitter collaborated rather than competed with third-party developers. Twitter actually removed language limiting third-party access from the company’s Developer Agreement in 2021. Starting in early 2022, Twitter went a step further, implementing an across-the-board policy shift to decentralize its business model and find new sources of revenue (via the New York Times).
Cutting off third-party developers is an abrupt and significant reversal of that policy. Whether the new, narrow approach to development can bring in sufficient profit to balance Twitter’s increasingly red ledger remains to be seen.
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