Seth Godin regarding the income conundrum facing Twitter (and other free services where the user is the product and the advertiser is the customer):
Free is a great idea, until free leads to a conflict between those contributing attention and those contributing cash.
Seth proposes a paid subscription that gets you an ad-free experience along with some pro-level features (like, hey why not, 160 characters). I am sure Twitter has put this option on the table, but who knows if they would ever roll it out. I think I would be willing to pay a few bucks per month to keep using my favorite 3rd-party client and to not see ads in my timeline (as I’m sure many of you reading this would be willing to do as well). But I’m afraid the more-likely scenario is that Twitter will do what it wants and we’ll have no option but to deal with it or leave.