Popular B2B company dumps Twitter over Musk’s API price hike

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By Webdesk


In recent weeks, countless indie developers announced that they would have to shut down their Twitter-based apps because of the new exorbitant prices that Twitter started rolling out for its API.

However, it’s not just small developers who decide to keep paying $42,000 per month to Twitter. This week, one of the largest customer support and live chat companies called for Twitter to be dropped as well.

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On Thursday Intercom announced(Opens in a new tab) that the company would “no longer support Twitter integration due to the recent API pricing changes made by Twitter.” The decision was implemented immediately, as Intercom has already removed Twitter from its products.

This is a remarkable decision, as Twitter has long been used as an important customer support channel for many companies. Its use as a customer oriented tool has been promoted(Opens in a new tab) by Twitter in the past. Since the early days of the social media platform, it has become very convenient for Twitter users to contact a company for help or to file a complaint.

And yet Intercom, one of the leaders in customer service, has decided that the new expensive API implemented by Twitter owner Elon Musk just isn’t worth it.

Intercom’s customers span many industries and include companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Udemy, and H&R Block using their customer support products and services. According to Forbes(Opens in a new tab)the company had annual sales of $200 million in 2021.

According to an Intercom customer service representative, the company has decided(Opens in a new tab) to drop Twitter integration because “Twitter’s new APIs would require development work and additional costs for us and customers.” Intercom offers a “unified inbox” service that essentially brings together messages that a customer receives on different social media channels and websites into a single platform interface.

Intercom says current customers will continue to see historical Twitter DMs in their workspace and reports, but new Twitter DMs will no longer arrive. Intercom customers will also no longer be able to reply to Twitter messages through Intercom’s service. Intercom still supports other channels, such as Facebook and Instagram.

Intercom’s decision to drop Twitter clearly didn’t come about in a bubble. Intercom can of course afford the new API costs, but like all companies, has clearly made a choice based on customer demand and what is best for the company.

Twitter is clearly going through some changes, and not just internally; the user base appears to be politically shifting to the right(Opens in a new tab), and catering to the interests of trolls, conspiracy theorists and far-right personalities because of the decisions made by the Musk-run company. Concerns about which user group is most likely to be served by a particular platform can feed into business decisions such as this one, although Intercom has so far given no indication that this has influenced its decision.

In protest of the “government-funded media” label that Musk applied to both his Twitter profile page NPR and PBS announced they would no longer place on the platform. Ever since Musk announced that he would eventually remove the blue check mark from outdated verified user accounts, some celebrities shared that they would use Twitter less or not at all. Half of Twitter’s top advertisers left the platform and as of last month it was still required yield(Opens in a new tab).





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