back

by joeblau·13y ago·view on hn ↗
So I love TapBots and I have paid for all of their mobile apps. When you look at their Twitter products, the amount of software they can sell is restricted by Twitters API limit. If you look at the Tweetbot For Mac[1] post it says:

> If you’ve used the Alphas/Betas and have decided not to purchase, please do us a huge favor and Revoke access; that frees up extra tokens for potential customers.

I don't think it's good when you have an awesome development team like TapBots who makes products that are, in My opinion better than Twitter's native clients, and you're capped to 100,000 device installs "just because". I know it's not "just because"; Twitter needs to become a business and generate revenue, but the same companies that helped build the brand and popularity are now punished.

[1] http://tapbots.com/blog/news/tweetbot-mac

1 comments
Great point. The API access restriction hasn't stung TapBots yet but the token caps are frustrating and potentially stifling to future growth.

I'm interested to see what Twitter will do when Tweetbot starts to approach the maximum number of tokens allowed. My guess is Twitter will grant Tapbots extra tokens. I think the API restrictions are geared towards preventing new companies from using Twitter's APIs in unintended ways (like Flattr) than shutting down established Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Echofon.