I wouldn't touch Twitter without a contract signed by my company and by Twitter. Any attempt to utilize their content consumers for anything other than reading content you produce has been shown to be at extreme risk of termination.
I don't believe Twitter doesn't know how they are going to generate revenue. I'm not convinced they can actually implement their ideas, but, if they had no ideas, I think they would be letting other companies throw themselves at the wall, then picking off the ones that stick via acquisitions. That they just squash them implies they think they know what they are doing.
You are right. I'm going through this exact same thing with the reddit api and chrome app store.
A lot of api providers seem to have a few limited (mostly lame) use cases in mind. Developers by their nature are creative boundry pushers. Conflict is inevitable.
I just wish api providers would take greater care in thinking about and describing what exactly is going to be allowed and not. Rather than putting something out there, having developers throw things at the wall, then banning things you don't like after the fact.
> Rather than putting something out there, having developers throw things at the wall, then banning things you don't like after the fact.
I would think that being able to operate that way is exactly the reason you want to offer an API. So that your users can come up with ideas for you. Trying to anticipate up front every conceivable use of an API and publishing it with a huge list of rules based on conjecture makes for a pretty crappy API.
I don't believe Twitter doesn't know how they are going to generate revenue. I'm not convinced they can actually implement their ideas, but, if they had no ideas, I think they would be letting other companies throw themselves at the wall, then picking off the ones that stick via acquisitions. That they just squash them implies they think they know what they are doing.