[chton]

Here's what the problem is: twitter isn't a product company. It's a service company. They didn't just invent a protocol, like the SMTP guys did, they provide a service for free. That means they need money to hire people, maintain servers, and survive in general. Even if they didn't want to make any money, if they never cared for profit, they would still need a way to have their service generate income.

I agree that it's a conundrum for them, but with this solution at least they're trying to do it in a non-obtrusive way that doesn't jeopardize the entire platform.