[haidev]

Won't this hurt Elon in the long run? I was never able to stand the official Twitter app it's filled with ads and irrelevant clutter. I think since moving to Android Tweetbot is one of the few apps I miss from having on my phone. I was still enjoying the Mac version. I guess I will stick to Nitter [0] from now on.

[0] - https://nitter.net/

[fencepost]

Won't this hurt Elon in the long run?

Maybe, but compared to the rest of the damage he's done to his brand this is a relatively tiny droplet. This may drive away power users (or drive them to a Twitter-owned option?), but many of them are probably already looking at how much priority they should keep on Twitter. Twitter client issues for many may be a second place to Twitter content issues as a driving factor.

[nomel]

> filled with ads and irrelevant clutter.

I always assumed the third party clients just provided a better interface. I didn't realize they circumvented the income stream.

If the third party clients were removing the means of monetization, for a company who struggles to profit, then it seems obvious that requiring paid access on its way, regardless of the owner. Twitter can't go forever at a loss.

The "surprise" is surprising.

[dragonwriter]

> Twitter can’t go forever at a loss.

But for nonrecurring expenses, Twitter was profitable before Musk’s buyout both torpedoed ad revenue (when it was announced, before it was even completed) and saddled it with massive expenses to finance the buyout.

The acquisition is literally the only reason it is any concern how long Twitter can operate at a loss.

[nomel]

> Twitter was profitable before Musk’s buyout

My mistake. Last I looked was 2020, when they were down about $1B.

[notwhereyouare]

I think it's more that the API didn't return the ads to the client. If they required 3rd party clients to include the ad's in the feed and grounds for termination of the API key if they weren't that would be a different story

[MrOwnPut]

What service does this? There are very strict rules in showing ads.

Making sure you're not showing them by nsfw content, etc. or your advertisers will pull out.

I can't think of a single service that provides ads for 3rd party clients to use.

Most are hostile to 3rd party clients due to threatened ad revenue, that's why there's invidious, nitter, etc. whackamole.

[Nextgrid]

> Making sure you're not showing them by nsfw content, etc. or your advertisers will pull out.

Which you can control by just returning the ads as part of the API response for the feed, which I'm sure how the official client does it. Making the client classify NSFW content and hide ads based on that seems like a stupid idea.

[MrOwnPut]

Certainly, but the second you get a rouge actor, your advertisers are going to be pissed.

At the very best the rouge app won't display ads.

At the worse, they'll ignore a nsfw tag and won't show the spoiler overlay, angering your advertiser.

Audits can catch it, but only after the damage is done.

I don't think there's any service that lets their ad supported plan be in the hands of a 3rd party client.

[robryan]

Enforce it on clients over a certain number of users where they are big enough to manage following a bunch of rules around the ads. Then they can be audited to make sure they get doing it correctly.

[MrOwnPut]

Yeah it can be done with X amount of risk and auditing ($)...

I was mainly asking has it been done by any service?

Risking your advertisers is not wise and audits will be expensive and reactive not proactive.

[croes]

Without the debt Musk put on Twitter they could at least go longer

[gfodor]

It depends. Probably imo, but this speeds up product development significantly and frees up a ton of resources in exchange for alienating a lot of users and the network effects of an API. Who knows if this kind of analysis was considered, but it’s not obviously a bad move until we see if Twitter starts doing faster product revs that pan out into growth.

[app4soft]

There is also Nitter for Android (WebView-app), but source repo not available for a month already.[0,1]

[0] https://gitlab.com/Plexer0/Nitter-Android

[1] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.plexer0.nitter/

[seydor]

By "app" do you mean the twitter website (because that's all i ve used). Why would one need an App to read a list that s basically full of browser links?

[wvenable]

Because the experience is better. That's the only reason anyone needs. Whether or not it's an App is immaterial.

[moneywoes]

Do you run nitter self hosted? The most popular server seems down for me

[charcircuit]

Most people don't use third party clients, so no it won't.