VKontakte has blocked access to its services for Kate Mobile, a popular alternative Android application. The client stopped working after new restrictions were introduced for third-party services. According to the developers, they tried to find out the terms of paid access in advance but received no response from the social network.
Since September 7, the platform has updated its VK API usage rules – a tool through which third-party applications receive data and perform actions on the social network. The number of requests is now limited: verified partners are allowed 100 million requests per month. The platform also announced paid access.
According to Kate Mobile's creators, if this limit applied to the app, active users could exhaust it in about a day and a half. Even maximum optimization, the team claims, doesn't help: sending personal messages alone requires twice as many requests as allowed per month. It's impossible to replace such requests with reading already saved data – each new message must be transmitted to the server.
The developers see the new rules as an attempt to push out unofficial applications. In the comments, long-time users thank the team for years of support and regret the loss of the lightweight client. Many write that they do not want to switch to the official VKontakte application due to ads and an overloaded interface.