Interfaces in Social Media

Interfaces are the talk of the town - even outside the tech industry. Developments in social media providers such as Twitter and Reddit directly and indirectly affect private individuals, meaning that the personal sphere of users is now also confronted with the topic of interfaces. What interfaces have to do with user experience, protest and blackmail by hackers.

Required Fees for Interfaces on Twitter & Reddit

The short message service Twitter is selling its interfaces with immediate effect: What was previously free of charge for developers will be charged for, probably starting February next year. The user platform Reddit also announced in April that it would make its interfaces available exclusively for a fee starting in July. The fact that both providers are ultimately not charity programmes but profit-oriented companies should not come as a surprise, but the far-reaching consequences for connected companies and for the users themselves have led to reactions that are also being felt outside the tech industry.

Protests and Hacker Attack

In the examplary case of Reddit, the moderators unceremoniously blocked some of the largest subs, i.e. subpages, citing a "coordinated protest", which meant that millions of users could no longer access the content there. Shortly afterwards, it became known that a hacker group was blackmailing Reddit into publishing stolen data if Reddit actually enforced its interface policy as planned. Twitter's plans were also met with protest. The reasoning behind all these reactions: The for-profit changes cut into the very thing that has allowed both services to establish their place in digital society - the freedom of their users.

Meaning for Connected Services

Let's talk numbers: The changes at Twitter mean that each customer (company) has to pay 2 cents per user and interface used. For Twitter's top customer Apollo, this means an additional financial expense of about 20 million US dollars. Apollo is therefore closing the connection with the start of this change - just one example of many that restrict direct use for private individuals as well. A "Twitter wall", as we all know it from trade fairs and events, would then also hardly be possible. 

Numerous companies are also connected to Reddit with the help of interfaces. Services that enable Reddit users to use the service in other programmes, such as barrier-free options for people with visual impairments or an efficient search for rule-compliant posts by moderators, could be discontinued immediately because the respective companies cannot or don't want to pay the additional costs.

Meaning for Users

These changes therefore not only affect private users indirectly, but also very directly. Many of the services that have been available up to now could either disappear or mean costs for each individual. It is obvious that not only the usability itself, but most likely also the size of the respective communities will shrink significantly. An actually very technical topic such as the provision of interfaces free of charge or subject to a fee therefore not only affects IT departments, developers or cost departments of companies, but ultimately every person using and sharing content on these social media services - in other words, the communities that build these services in the first place.