Natasha Lomas writes:

You can turn off the new media injection ‘feature’ in Twitter’s mobile apps (perhaps for download speed/data conservation reasons), but Twitter has confirmed to TechCrunch there is no off switch in its web client.

...

It’s not that images and videos can’t be interesting; of course they can. But by forcing users to view media before deciding whether it is worth viewing (i.e. by reading the context provided by the accompanying text tweet before they click on the media link), Twitter is removing a vital content filter from its own network.

Now, if you’re using Twitter’s web client, there is no opt-out of this visual clutter. And that makes Twitter step a little closer to the kind of content you’re forced to eyeball on Google+ or Facebook. So basically:

Natasha is right. My usage of the Web client is going to decline significantly.

Natasha points out that this new default makes Twitter look like Google+:

Actually, Twitter now looks like Instagram ads:

http://pandawhale.com/post/30637/what-instagram-ads-look-like