What is particularly galling is that Twitter has been saying for years that they want to monetize without slapping ads over everything. Now they're monetizing by... slapping ads over everything. And ensuring that no one can threaten the business model they supposedly didn't want to use.

All of this would have been better had Twitter just started off by slapping ads on their service and making it clear how they were going to protect it. Instead, they've grown their userbase (at least among the technorati) by asserting that they weren't going to pursue the exact model they seem so ardently chasing now.

Sure, 3rd party app devs might be "suckers" for having latched on early, but I don't think that excuses Twitter for such a (to use a Gruberism) dick move.