[teej]

After years of being increasingly hostile to 3rd party developers, Twitter finally decided that you needed their permission to have more than 100k users of your twitter client. That announcement was bundled with tightened rate limiting and stricter controls over how you could display tweets. This was the final stake in the coffin for many Twitter clients.

https://blog.twitter.com/2012/changes-coming-in-version-11-o...

[mattmanser]

There was a period here on HN where every week or two they'd be a story or an Ask HN about someone hitting the limit and having to shut down.

To add a bit more to the context to the parent, all these third party clients made it possible for people to use Twitter how they wanted to, to tailor it to them. Twitter decided they wanted you to use it in their way.

It was a big shift in the culture of twitter. It's hard to quantify as everyone has their own perspective on it.

[drspacemonkey]

The rate limit was bad, but the maximum user limit was a complete killer. Basically, if your app was a success, Twitter would shut it down. Overnight, it became a bad investment to make an app that tied into Twitter.