Twitter is helping Mastodon achieve network effects

A few weeks ago, Twitter announced it was shutting down all the APIs for developers. Nobody besides Twitter can create a Twitter client or integrate its software with Twitter. Apps like Tapbots’s Tweetbot announced they were discontinuing their product not because they wanted to but because Twitter was revoking their access to the platform.

Yesterday, Twitter announced it will no longer support free access to the Twitter API. These are APIs that were not covered in the first announcement. These APIs are used, for example, by many apps that let you schedule tweets in the future, or automatically tweet content to Twitter. (Big platforms like Buffer say they won’t be impacted.)

It’s not clear how Musk’s decision will benefit Twitter. Maybe Musk doesn’t consider Mastodon a threat. But now it’s not only Twitter users who are migrating to Mastodon, but also developers. Twitter continues to help Mastodon achieve the network effects it needs to become a really valuable network.