Twitter can't afford to be feated? Sure it can! The only people who could possibly fear twitter are developers. Regular Twitter users mostly don't give a crap.

Twitter can't afford to be feated? Sure it can! The only people who could possibly fear twitter are developers. Regular Twitter users mostly don't give a crap. They jump on whatever client they like, Tweet a bit, read a bit, and go about their lives. I really think developers are really overestimating our importance to Twitter at this point. We're a small portion of Twitter's users and they arguably don't need us anymore. We made it popular and better but now they can cut off access to their API completely and replace all third party functionality and our screams would echo in our echo chamber but fall on deaf ears the moment it escaped the chamber. Non-developer users may shed a tear and write an angry blog post but they'll all forget, move on to the new official Twitter apps and the rest of us will still be complaining about it on HN (a couple hundred of us may pay to scream about it on app.net in protest too). It's not right but it is what it is. I think it's better to accept this now rather than have to deal with our denial later. Edit: I mentioned they could cut off all functionality. That was hyperbole obviously but they can cut off access to a hefty chunk of the API and replace what third parties are doing nonetheless.