Because it's worth that much. I didn't even give it any thought – I just hit the purchase button the moment I read I could.
They shouldn't have written this with the sheepish, question-marked headline. They don't need to apologize or feel bashful, though I get why they would. It's a great desktop app. It costs what it costs. Anyone who doesn't like that is just leaving more tokens for the rest of us.
I interpreted this as largely a protest in the hopes of getting Twitter's token policy changed. It seems very odd that they can get 100,000 tokens for free but can't pay for more.
That's reasonable. And I agree it's odd. Why should Twitter care if 20% of their userbase is on third party clients with an experience that's not on-brand, if those clients pay a per-user fee?
One explanation: not all users are created equal. It could be that the 20% who use third party clients are more/most engaged. Lassoing them back into the fold could have some strategic benefit.
Twitter can't enforce a "consistent experience" on third party clients, meaning they can't be sure that promoted tweets, accounts, and other forms of generally unwanted advertising will show up in timelines that aren't rendered with Twitter's own code.
They can revoke access for clients that don't comply with the display guidelines. They probably don't want to be in the business of policing 3rd parties like that, but they have the power if they want to use it.
Yes. Additionally, blocking access past 100k also stops one client from being the-tail-that-wags-the-dog too. Imagine a dispute where Twitter faced blocking the chosen mode of access to a significant percentage of users, or caving to the client owner.
Could that be a viable source of revenue instead of advertisement?
Charge per 10k tokens or something, with the first 100k free. Make each token worth about $0.60 and you could make some serious dough via not just 3rd party clients, but also people trying to mine data, build on top of the platform etc. etc.
The rub is that "a premium price" means something a little bit different to each customer.
Unless you price it so highly that only one person in the world will pay for it, you're leaving consumer surplus on the table. Clearly that's not a good solution though, since you miss out on all the slightly more price sensitive customers.
Because it's worth that much. I didn't even give it any thought – I just hit the purchase button the moment I read I could.
They shouldn't have written this with the sheepish, question-marked headline. They don't need to apologize or feel bashful, though I get why they would. It's a great desktop app. It costs what it costs. Anyone who doesn't like that is just leaving more tokens for the rest of us.