Twitter’s API issues have frustrated developers in each of Twitter’s new API access tiers. Those with Basic or Pro plans — paying $100 and $5000 a month for API access, respectively — have experienced unannounced changes to their plans, numerous bugs, and often receive zero customer support. And developers shelling out for Twitter’s Enterprise API Plan, which starts at $42,000 per month, are experiencing sudden outages and disappointing service considering the money they’re paying.
I have trouble wrapping my mind around the fact the is some sort of market value to be had by paying 42,000 per month to twitter.
Think nation states and AI companies.
Researchers, sociologists, and markers probably pay it too.
I don’t do this work but from what I heard from my uni, librarians are sharing guides to analyze twitter from web archive. So I’m not sure whether there are researchers that actually pay, or at least at that full price. Even reddit/pushshiftapi makes some exceptions for researchers and moderators, for the time being.
I’d guess most researchers can’t afford 42k/month.