Really, there's only so far you can comment meaningfully on twitter if you currently don't use or dislike it to the point of just making "lol Twitter" comments, which are most of the posts in this thread. I hope everyone understands there is a clear division between "people who hate Twitter" (and who would make the same comments about Twitter regardless of what the newsbit was) and "people who use Twitter", because opinions can differ on the pay issue based on that.
I use Twitter. It's microblogging, basically, and a way to update my Facebook status without having to login to Facebook to do so. It's quick, it's easy, and the streamlined apps that you can use from practically anywhere - from a laptop, or a phone, and the like - give it the same functionality as any social media tool without any of the extra BS. Yes, there are people who tweet about minutiae which you don't care about. Those people I unfollow immediately. But there are friends, people who provide interesting links and stories, and other such information which I will happily keep up with, and they do the same for me.
On a practical level, I've used it to microblog information and news instantly. I was invited to an EA event, and managed to provide readers and visitors with instant, up-to-date info on the event for people to digest and discuss til I had a chance to write my main articles. I was able to also tweet pictures and exclusive media to Twitter for people as well. It worked great, and people loved the up-to-the-minute info bits.
Don't hate on it til you try it, would be my advice, but I have no illusions on changing anti-Twitter opinion in this thread. Whatever floats your boat.
Anyway, as to the news, if they did Twitter premium, I'd probably not pay for it. The key is whether premium will be additional features not yet in the interface or making core features pay to use. If it is the latter it will be disastrous and a bad move (though it'd solve some of the instability problems due to people tweeting about, well, everything), but if it's the former, it won't be really relevant to me. I'll just keep using free Twitter.
I don't really care they are considering this. Clearly the infrastructure needs to grow. Infrastructure and tech costs money, so why not seek another way to make cash to do it? Ad revenue, in these tough times, isn't going as far.
