[onion2k]

There clearly is an API that returns the full text of a tweet or the official app and website wouldn't be able to display it. They must be maintaining and building an API. The only thing that's not being maintained or updated are the public facing endpoints. That doesn't mean much.

[h11h]

Yes, there is a GraphQL API that Twitter's web interface uses, but developers who use the publicly available API can't use that.

[grogenaut]

This is how many websites work. A public api requires done right means you are spending effort maintaining it but worse, if your apps use it as well, it means you have to wait not only for your apps to update (maybe 11+ for different platforms), you have to wait for independent third parties to also update. With internal platforms, you can generally priortize changes if you need to with your coworkers, and you know the time frame for platforms like Samsung tvs and Playstations, and can plan for it.

External 3rd parties are unknown in some cases, and may try to leverage you in others.

So you have a stable 3rd party api for some very large features, and we have a internal highly fluid api for our stuff. 3rd parties can totally use that api you use, and do. But why make any representations or tie your velocity to all those 3rd parties for your main app.

You want these companies to inovate and improve while also tying them to often unmonitized ecosystems of 3rd parties you can't communicate with or priroitize well.

It's generally unsurprising to me that the api support breaks down this way. I actually think it's pretty disiungenuine to make a sold 3rd party api without it being monetized. That encourages people to build ecosystems on other peoples good will which. We've seen how that works time and again. Even worse when 3rd parties try and compete partly with the bread and butter of the api they're using.

[BulgarianIdiot]

So it can only be used secretly by bots. Good job.

[onion2k]

developers who use the publicly available API can't use that

The point is that saying there's no API is wrong. There is an API. Elon has chosen not to let developers outside of Twitter use it. It's clearly a political choice rather than a technical competence problem.

[anigbrowl]

That's like saying that my front door isn't shut because the doors to rooms inside are open. When people say 'API' they mean the public-facing endpoints, not the internal ones that are only accessible to Twitter's developers.

[ncallaway]

It doesn’t have to be a technical competence problem. It could easily be a business competence problem.

[rsynnott]

I mean ultimately it’s all semantics, but the idea that a private API is not an API proper is not exactly unusual.

It’s more a business competence than a technical competence issue, likely (unless he’s actually attempting to have a direct technical role, in which case it is Dunning-Kruger made manifest).