A friend recently asked me what it would take for me to go back to developing on Twitter. I said, "Finally release the 3rd-party rev-share program they were pro

A friend recently asked me what it would take for me to go back to developing on Twitter. I said, "Finally release the 3rd-party rev-share program they were promising back in 2009." They will never do this now with their current heading, but it would make a lot of sense. If they are becoming a media/ad company, they need as much distribution as possible, so let the ads run free outside their own walls. For Twitter this would make a ton of sense because the rev-share would be based on impressions of ads, clicks, etc. The method to determine the dev's cut is straightforward and a known system (a la AdSense). For App.net, as you correctly pointed out, the definition of "rev-share based on usage" is insanely complicated and the maximum value per user per month is capped at $2.08 (in the 50/50 scenario). If I create a premium app.net client, would I still want to charge for it (e.g. iphone app)... would I even be allowed to charge for it in accordance w/ app.net TOS? The idea of no first-party apps competing for user revenue is the ultimate dream of a platform that enables a 3rd party dev ecosystem. Sadly, many such platforms that began with that promise ultimately went back on it, much to devs' dismay. Much care would need to be taken to stick to this decision over the long term if this is decided up front. Aside: I'm peeved that Svbtle doesn't allow comments. All the feedback you get must be out-of-band, and it creates extra steps for the people that read your posts.