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by burningChrome 685 days ago
>> I don't think it actually changes the situation at all if he wasn't going to sign up anyway.

This is kind of the salient point.

Either you test on the free API and plan on paying for access slightly before its ready to go live, or you try the "free lunch" approach and see if you can get one by the tendy and see how long you can go before you get shut down and have to pony up the money.

Either way. they should've had the cost of the API in their budget.

We should all know by now. . . . nobody rides for free.

1 comments

> Either way. they should've had the cost of the API in their budget.

There was no cost to the API ten years ago. I submitted a prototype of my app to their developer program, described its functionality and exchanged a few emails back and forth with someone in developer relations. They specifically approved it and decided how many API calls to give me. A paid API didn't exist back then to my knowledge (perhaps there was some kind of enterprise API but I don't know?). The point of the post is how badly Yelp handled the transition from free to paid. They are perfectly in their right to transition to paid. But they should've handled the emails and transition better.

As mentioned in the post I developed the app on a whim. But after 10 years, it had a few users, although not many. They and I should have received more than a few days notice from Yelp that the API was going to become unsustainable (see my comments elsewhere in this thread).