I feel betrayed

March 13, 2011

Twitter,

What happened to you? I feel betrayed.

You used to be a great service that was open to developers to use your API and create awesome businesses and tools around. You had such a hands off approach that you allow our imagination to run wild.

With your latest changes to your TOS, you now limit our imagination and dictate what we can and cannot develop. So what if I want to create another Twitter client? You claim that 90% of Twitter users already use the official application so why do you feel threatened by me?

You claim you want to limit fragmentation in the Twitter experience but what if I think my Twitter experience using your official application is terrible? Why am I not allowed to improve it for myself?

I thought it was us, developers, that helped propel your popularity?

On another note, I am finally glad you are telling us what not to build so we don't waste hours and money doing something you will not approve of in the end.

On that note, good thing I did not spend time developing a Twitter client but a web service that utilizes the Twitter API to share what interests me.