Twitter Stole Our Ideas

Twitter is obviously dicking around with their way of doing things and all my nerd friends are (rightly) miffed about it. Personally, Twitter is no longer an ally and I'll be jumping ship to App.net shortly. I'm not alone in this. Onward, right?

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        While watching so many people complain and explain why they're disappointed with Twitter, I've noticed something that confuses me. It runs something like, "Twitter is turning its back on those who made it popular and is stealing their ideas." Well no shit. There's like 12 of us compared to the masses of "normal" folks now using their service. I don't blame Twitter for catering that way. I don't like it, but they never asked me.
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        But the ideas? Users invented retweets and many other features and conventions now adopted by Twitter. Why shouldn't Twitter use those ideas? They were good ones. What us nerds seem to be angry about is the <em>combination</em> of changing the service to suit a different audience while still using the good ideas we had in the early days. Tough shit for us, really. Perhaps we should've patented our ideas instead of letting Twitter just use them however they want. Oh, that's right, software patents are evil.
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        Twitter hasn't done anything evil yet. My not agreeing with the direction they're taking doesn't make them wrong. As much as I'd like to think we all "made Twitter what it is today," they won't even notice when we leave.
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        I'm <a href="http://alpha.app.net/jackbaty">jackbaty</a> over at App.net, by the way.
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