A light rises.

The tech media loves Dalton:

"It’s as if Caldwell has pushed the reset button on Twitter and gone back in time to rewrite history, this time attempting to ensure that people feel safe and developers who take up residence aren’t thrown out on the street."

Media loves tension and conflict; they love a good underdog fight. Dalton is a (massive) underdog.

I love his vision but will users pay for our own Twitter?

I'm still on the fence.

SV elite will, so they can claim moral high ground, consider it a hedge of a bet against the (likely) inevitable future that twitter and Facebook will dominate. Seen #kony12? Hipsters love contributing to campaigns in super easy ways to buy a stake in something bigger than themselves; or perhaps I'm describing AngelList and kickstarter. :)

If Dalton cannot get 10,000 people to kick in $50 each, is that a signal?

If Twitter wanted to give him $500k to run the experiment, should he take their money?

Well they control the platform and are the ones reporting their own numbers and funds raised...https://join.app.net/

At any rate, twitter / apple is a much more interesting conversation to me. Apple + Twitter wallet? Or would they feel obliged to partner with Square, then too? Is twitter not a public -- if not open -- Facebook.

I believe Twiiter is the app.net folks are looking for; this is, to me, more of a question of figuring out how to treat developers and what not in the business context.

Twitter has burned most of the developer bridges.

No way most developers will trust them anymore.

Does this site not have twitter sign-in? And instagram and find friends via twitter?developers will use twitter API for rational self-interest and simple economics.

It does not, yet. Hopefully one day.