This will have outsized implications for the 1% of users who actually post the content the other 99% come to see in a way that Twitter (and its 280-character comment limitation) does not.

It has. As somewhat of a Twitter addict, I'm finding it much easier not to log on these days, because the experience and the conversations have really hollowed out. I'm also no longer seriously considering using Twitter for promoting any projects or anything of the like going forward.

Reddie relies more on genuine content and less personal brand (as you are subbed to subreddits and not public users, mostly)

Typically it comes out of my mouth in a more moderate stance, like "sorry, I don't use Twitter anymore. Any chance you could link a better forum?"

Reddit has been more or less re-inventing itself for their asinine IPO aspirations, and in doing so it has moved to closed source code, redesigned their interface, adjusted content policies to court advertisers, and now they're finally going after the crowd of enthusiasts who depend on features that Reddit has failed and/or declined to implement.

This all reeks of venture capitalist sabotage and it's the very thing that ultimately killed off Digg.

UPDATE: Oh I see, they did the kill-the-API-to-kill-third-party-clients thing before too, long before the current brouhaha. OK, never mind.