Over the past few weeks, countless indie developers have announced that they would have to shut down their Twitter-based apps due to the new exorbitant pricing that Twitter began rolling out for its API.
However, it’s not just small-time developers making the decision to pass on paying $42,000 per month to Twitter. Just this week, one of the biggest companies in the customer support and live chat space made the call to drop Twitter too.
On Thursday, Intercom announced that the company would “no longer support Twitter Integration due to the recent API pricing changes implemented by Twitter.” The decision was implemented immediately, as Intercom has already removed Twitter from its products.
This is a notable decision as Twitter has long been used as a major customer support channel for many businesses. Its usage as a customer-facing tool has been promoted by Twitter in the past. Since the social media platform’s early days, it’s become quite useful for Twitter’s users to be able to reach out to a company for help or to file a complaint.
And yet, Intercom, one of the leaders in the customer service space, has decided that the new high-priced API implemented by Twitter owner Elon Musk just isn’t worth it.
Intercom’s clients span many industries and include companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Udemy, and H&R Block using its customer support products and services. According to Forbes, the company had $200 million in annual revenue in 2021.
According to an Intercom customer service agent, the company decided to drop Twitter integration because “Twitter’s new APIs would require development work and additional costs for us and customers.” Intercom provides a “unified inbox” service which basically brings messages that a client receives on various social media channels and websites into a single platform interface.
Intercom says that current customers will continue to see historical Twitter DMs in their workspace and reports, but new Twitter DMs will no longer come in. Intercom customers will also no longer be able to reply to Twitter messages through Intercom’s service. Intercom will still support other channels, like Facebook and Instagram.
Intercom’s decision to drop Twitter clearly didn’t happen in a bubble. Intercom can obviously afford the new API fees but, like all businesses, evidently made a choice based on customer demand and what’s best for business.
Twitter is clearly going through some changes, and not just internally either; its user base is perceived to be shifting to the right politically, and catering to the interests of trolls, conspiracy theorists, and far-right personalities due to the decisions made by the Musk-run company. Worries about what user base is most likely to be served by a given platform can feed into corporate decisions like this one, though Intercom has made no indication thus far that this affected its decision.
In protest of the “government-funded media” label that Musk affixed to its Twitter profile page, both NPR and PBS announced that they would no longer post on the platform. Since Musk announced he would eventually remove the blue checkmark badge from legacy verified user accounts, some celebrities have shared that they would use Twitter less or even not at all. Half of Twitter’s top advertisers left the platform and as of last month, had yet to return.
