Twitter API disabling free access

https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1621026986784337922:

Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead

Will there be any impact to Twitter feeds added to Newsblur?

1 Like

I’m waiting for pricing to make a determination. I have a strong incentive to keep it going because I personally only interact with Twitter through NewsBlur now.

8 Likes

Same for me. Thanks!

How do you use Twitter with NewsBlur?

Ignore my post, I found out how. :grinning:

For those interested, you just subscribe to an account, list, or search by using the twitter.com url. Here’s more:

1 Like

As of this morning, my twitter feeds are showing " 2023-04-04 10:18:02 Twitter Error: API not authorized (565)" and not updating.

Did twitter finally break things?

1 Like

Yep, it finally happened. I’m looking at the hobbyist level, but honestly, it’s nowhere near enough. 10,000 reads/month = 333 reads/day, and there’s more users than that just using twitter, not to mention following more than 1 person and seeing their tweets once a day…

Damn, Elon! I too, mainly interact with twitter via Newsblur, so this change to their terms is real PITA. Like someone else posted, can nitter be a conduit to a solution?

https://nitter.net

As a paid user, I’d personally be willing to pay for a higher tier for this feature alone–super helpful feature for me. Just my 2c.

2 Likes

@samuelclay - any update on what Newsblur will do to handle Twitter?

Feedbin and Innoreader have both had their API access rejected recently because their apps “violated Twitter Rules and policies”. The egomaniac that now owns Twitter don’t want you accessing Twitter any way besides the official site and app.

Seems like an utter waste of Samuel’s time & effort to even try to support Twitter at this point.

Move on and let Twitter die.

1 Like

Would also pay for continued Twitter access.

1 Like

That may not be a great option for some people, but I do agree that I don’t think that @samuelclay should be responsible for playing Eternal Whackamole against Elon’s whims. There’s no payment tier that would make that worth it, imo.

2 Likes

…which is exactly the reason I was using Newsblur for in the first place, to see the few sources that only post to Twitter without actually using Twitter, which I already hated long before “the purchase”.

2 Likes

Unless Twitter gets enough blowback to build additional tiers between hobbyist and enterprise, I think samuel’s right the dream is over. A number of us would pay multiples of our NewsBlur subscription to keep this one feature, but even that wouldn’t cover samuel’s new API costs, unless I’m missing something. HUGE shame - folders + aggressive filtering in Intelligence Trainer made reading Twitter so much more useable.

2 Likes

One of the attractions of Newsblur has been Twitter integration. I have discovered it only in the last 2-3 years, but many of my feeds are Twitter feeds and the percentage is increasing. That and substack.

Newsblur is a beautiful piece of software, and I’ve been a very satisfied paid user for many years, but I can totally see how this could decrease its attraction for some.

I hope that @samuelclay will find a way to fix the connection again, once Elon figures out he needs to drop the prices. I too would happily pay for it.

Btw, this is what Samuel is dealing with:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/30/23662832/twitter-api-tiers-free-bot-novelty-accounts-basic-enterprice-monthly-price

The company says older tiers will be deprecated “over the next 30 days.” Here’s a short summary of the three replacements (which can also be found on Twitter’s website):

  • Free — Write-only access with the ability to post 1,500 tweets per month at no cost.
  • Basic — A $100 per month subscription for hobbyists with the option of posting 3,000 tweets per month at the user level, or 50,000 tweets per month at the app level. The read limit is 10,000 tweets.
  • Enterprise — Promises to offer “commercial-level access that meets your and your customer’s specific needs” as well as “managed services [from] a dedicated account team.” No specific price was listed, but Platformer previously reported that a “low-cost enterprise plan” could cost as much as $42,000 a month.

Later edit: Problem relatively fixed with changing the RSS feeds to nitter.net/[twitterusername]/rss. The only issue is that nitter only returns the latest 10 posts.

3 Likes

I’m sure I’m in the minority, but I need Twitter for work (I know) so I’d be willing to pay over $100/month for this feature alone. The Newsblur Twitter experience is just that much better than vanilla, and that was true before the acquisition as well.

1 Like

Nitter looks extremely useful, but most likely will get shot down sooner or later too. But thanks, will use it while it lasts.

If you really want to make it work, you could use the NewsBlur repo and run it yourself, using your own hobbyist twitter api credentials, which costs $100/month. it should be trivial to do, you would just need to register your own twitter app and drop in the API credentials. Running NewsBlur from source is a single command (make) and works quietly in the background, provided you install Docker.

6 Likes

Super helpful–thanks @samuelclay !