[jerf]

"It would be interesting to see some sort of cost/benefit analysis from the gov perspective on whether or not to subsidize a public service like Twitter."

If you're going to think like a government (well... a good one anyhow), you shouldn't be thinking about Twitter. You should be thinking about the category of things it represents. Is that category in trouble? Goodness gracious no, it's all but in a Cambrian explosion.

There's no compelling reason to subsidize the category in general, and even less reason to subsidize Twitter specifically.

Arguably the correct move is to definitively kill Twitter and show that "get really big, have vague hopes to show ads someday" is not a viable business plan, instead of it being in an indeterminate limbo.