Over the last decade or so, the API landscape has evolved dramatically, something I discussed in my previous post The Rise of API Product Management. This growth in popularity created new business opportunities for both the API providers and the third-party developers building on top of them, driving growth and innovation. Companies like Shopify have leveraged robust app marketplaces to offer customizable user experiences that have come to define the modern ecommerce experience.
However, there’s an emerging trend in software that is casting doubt on this model and giving developers pause. This year I’ve watched with concern as new API monetization strategies began to rewrite the rules and companies pulled the rug out from under the developer communities they once courted. This shift, which may signal the end of an era of openness, deserves a closer look to understand what it means for the future of API-driven platforms.
Rewriting the Terms
Changes made to Twitter and Reddit’s API Terms of Service (TOS) had a profound impact on the developer communities that have thrived around these platforms. The primary driver for these changes was monetization, as the macroeconomic landscape shifted and investors looked for ways to increase revenue. This sudden shift to monetize APIs that had been free to use for years created disruption in the developer communities and backlash from the user base. Looking back, now that things have calmed, it’s difficult to say if the changes had a net positive or negative impact for the companies. The most significant impact they may have had was normalizing introducing major changes to licensing and monetization with little notice to developers.
There’s a strange dichotomy with third-party developers in the tech industry. For some businesses, a thriving community is essential for their products success. For others, some integration partners are viewed as “bottom feeders”, offering hacky solutions to plug feature gaps. This can lead to contempt at companies towards third-party integrators, and events like leadership changes can introduce uncertainty for the community.
Twitter Leads the Charge
The first company to disrupt the ecosystem with sudden, unexplained changes was Twitter, when third-party Twitter clients, like Tweetbot and Twitterific began displaying errors to the end-users. Days went by without explanation or restored access. It took Twitter nearly a week to update their Developer Agreement, which effectively banned all commercial use of the API. The developer community was left reeling from this sudden change, and developers were forced to move to another platform, like Mastodon, or shut down completely.
This all took place at the height of the transformation taking place after Twitter had being taken private. It’s reasonable to assume that the decision to block third-party apps was executed by leadership with little consideration paid to the community. And while the backlash was strong, it’s difficult to say whether the change had a meaningful impact to Twitter’s bottom line. Either way, it set a precedent by significantly disrupting it’s open developer community without any meaningful consequence.
The Reddit App-pocalypse
Then take the recent changes to Reddit’s API TOS. These changes have also shut down several third-party apps, including Apollo, Sync, and BaconReader. These apps, which had become integral parts of the Reddit experience for many users (including many moderators), were forced to go dark due to the new API pricing structure introduced by Reddit.
Reddit’s decision to switch to a paid access model for its API was positioned as a reaction to the value of data and the costs associated with supporting third-party apps. Like Twitter, this was a top-down decision that had to be implemented in a short time. For the Reddit community, this decision was significant. The developer communities around these apps, which had been thriving for years, were suddenly left in the dark. Apollo, for instance, crashed when access was revoked, leaving its users with nothing but a spinning wheel.
In the days leading up to Apollo going dark, a movement was started on Reddit to petition the CEO, Steve Huffman to revert the changes. He attempted to explain the company’s decision in a post, but was met with near unanimous contempt from the user base. The changes impacted both users of third-party apps like Apollo, but also unpaid moderators, who relied heavily on the moderation tools provided by third-party tools. Many subs staged a day of protest, going private for a day, and other subs continued to protest by shit-posting content attacking the CEO for a prolonged period of time. Unfortunately, the protests had little effect and eventually dwindled out.
The Impact on Developers and Users
It’s important to highlight that the impact of these changes extended beyond developers and directly impacted end-users and moderators as well. This underscores the importance of considering the full impact of such decisions, and taking those considerations to heart when developing a strategy to roll out breaking changes. After all, the users of these third-party apps are also the API provider’s users.
On top of this, these changes seem to go against the principles of good product management. They represent huge, breaking changes introduced with little lead time, which created significant upset among users. The poor communication throughout these events points to a complete lack of organization at these companies, with information often coming in the form of a tweet or Reddit post from a third-party developer. It’s disheartening to see companies that were once the gold standard for open APIs abandon their communities so brazenly, and I worry about the effects it will have industry wide.
The New Reality for Developers
The changes to Twitter and Reddit’s API TOS serve as a stark reminder of the delicate balance between fostering a community and achieving monetization. The message is becoming increasingly clear: open platforms can quickly become unstable, leaving developers to question whether it is worth their time and effort to invest in building on platforms that can change with little notice. While these platforms have a right to monetize their services, they must also consider the impact of their decisions on the developer communities that have grown around them. In the end, it’s a reminder that in the world of tech, decisions made at the top can have far-reaching consequences. And sometimes, those consequences can lead to the death of thriving communities.