And I also don't think you have seriously researched it, thought it through or compared the idea with potential alternatives. I also also don't think tossing it out as an idea on HN is likely to cause Twitter to do anything with the idea. So, hey, I don't actually need to argue with you to put a stop to it. So me replying is solely out of a positive impetus to engage people in a meaningful way. I really have zero fear that you tossing this out there will cause Twitter to hit the brakes and do a hard left and jump on this.
If you want to propose a brainstorming session and some means to float suggestions past Twitter, cool. But one off suggestions like this tend to be the modern equivalent of armchair politicians of the past who had a raft load of brilliant ideas for solving every imaginable problem on the planet, if only the world would listen to them.
I mean, it is cool for making chitchat around the water cooler. But that's about it, more than 99% of the time.
As an alternative, I suggest Twitter talk to Facebook about their artificially intelligent driven advertisement engine, because it's very impressive. I've trained it with the like button and group sign-ups to the point where sometimes the ads that come out of left field really grab my attention. They are telling me about things I didn't know I'd like. Curiously, I've been on Google longer, always signed in to gmail and YouTube, but their ads to me are total junk.
I think Twitter is a unique cultural phenomenon that performs very valuable service. It's almost like a necessary public utility at this point. I'd hate to see it go away. HN is very valuable to me as well - I'd pay for it. Reddit added the "gilding" feature to give someone gold and pay for server time. Twitter needs to get creative. I'm rooting for them.
I think the obvious answer is that not everyone with lots of followers have or makes a lot of money. It will strangle the social justice movement (not that i will be too sad, but still that is not the right way of defeating an ideology)