Seriously, _what_ are they gaining by eliminating access to third-party clients? If they want usage data, they already have all the API calls. If they want more ads, they can change the APIs to inject them.
If value in a platform comes from third parties choosing to use the service, and those third parties are free to use alternatives, then platforms should be very careful about how greedy they get in exploiting their users.
Most of the platform value actually comes from future, continued use.
But it doesn’t matter what is, it matters what they think and they’ve got AI cash fomo.
Aren't they closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out? Literally all their data from 2005 to March 2023 is still available via torrent.