Twitter API Pricing Prompts WordPress to Drop Automated Twitter Posting

From the official blog of Jetpack, an official WordPress plugin from Automattic:

Twitter decided, on short notice, to dramatically change the terms and pricing of the Twitter API. We have attempted to work with Twitter in good faith to negotiate new terms, but we have not been able to reach an agreement. As a result, the Twitter connection on Jetpack Social will cease to work, and your blog posts will no longer be auto-shared to Twitter.

You will still be able to share your posts to Twitter manually by pasting the post link into the body of your tweet.

In addition, you can still auto-share your posts to Tumblr, Facebook, and Linkedin. In the near future, we are adding the ability to auto-share to Instagram and Mastodon.

Twitter’s new API pricing is exorbitant, starting at $42,000/month for 50 million tweets. I get the feeling that there are a lot of “enterprise” Twitter API users whom Elon Musk believed would definitely pay these prices, who instead are saying “We are definitely not paying these prices.” Musk thinks Twitter is indispensable. Doesn’t seem like almost anyone else does.

This is a perfect case: Twitter was getting far more value out of Wordpress blogs being able to auto-share new posts than vice-versa. Now those tweets just won’t go out.

Update: Here’s another good example: the MTA (New York’s transit authority) will no longer post status updates to Twitter. If they’re not paying, who is?

★ Monday, 1 May 2023