Why should Twitter sell data via a 3rd party? Note that DataSift tries to equalize platforms and makes Twitter look like just another option. Right alongside th

Why should Twitter sell data via a 3rd party? Note that DataSift tries to equalize platforms and makes Twitter look like just another option. Right alongside the companies that they have no relationship with (ones where you give them API keys and they connect for you). Datasift was also taking a rather nice cut of the money, and Twitter can easily provide the same service. Having a third party handle it, take a cut, etc. only make sense if you want to keep customers at a distance (say, to pretend to be concerned about privacy), or if you're too busy or unsure about building the service yourself Cutting Datasift off (really, just letting the contract expire) is nothing like terminating API access for third parties.