There are two tiers of Twitter: the early-adopter tech users, who use third-party API clients like Twitterific and Tweetbot, and everyone else.

The first bucket has a vastly different Twitter experience. As an API client user I have no ads, no polls, no recommendations or friends likes, no "someone you follow replied" experience. Just a timeline of who I choose to follow, the blissful way it always was. No wonder they wanted to shut the API down.

(Apropos of nothing, the first bucket contains all the tech journalists.)