[kelnos]

But Twitter did not close down or pivot into a rideshare company.

Yes, they did close down third-party access to their platform, but that is completely not the same as those other things you mention.

I doubt most Twitterific customers have any idea what a third-party API platform is, let alone Twitter's shady history with how they've treated API developers. Your average Twitterific purchaser probably just thinks it's a premium Twitter app that lets them do Twitter things, and would expect that app to continue working as long as Twitter exists. (Which it still does!)

> On any reasonable viewpoint that's a risk accepted by the purchaser, not the app seller.

If your definition for "reasonable" is actually the definition of "unreasonable", sure. Twitterific's customers should not have to take on the consequences of the risk that Twitter would shut down third-party access to their API. That is a risk that Twitterific took on themselves as a risk to their business, and they should have a plan for what to do in this case. And that plan should not be "beg our customers to pay us for not providing a service anymore". It should include them pro-actively refunding the unused portions of any subscriptions (super gross that they didn't do this, double-super gross that they're begging for "donations"), and then responsibly winding the company down (assuming they don't have any other still-viable products that could keep them going). It sucks that they'd have to do this, but that's what can happen when you bet your business on someone else's platform.

[nocoiner]

I keep reading your responses on this topic and nodding my head more and more vigorously. I really do feel for the devs, but also seems like they had a good run - really, about as long of a run as anyone can expect reasonably have in this space. Better than most, certainly.