I read somewhere that Twitter has around 750,000 applications registered. They don't want people to build "clients" because that's their bread and butter, their way of making money.<p>I say, why don't you charge the app developers a nominal $5 per month per app. The most optimistic figure if all the apps registered right now agree to pay up would be $45 million a year. Hey, that's a good start!<p>P.S. This will probably draw flak from a lot of app developers, but twitter can always build more features such as app analytics to justify the fee. I have a twitter app http://justunfollow.com and from the point of view of an app developer, I wouldn't mind paying a small fee to keep twitter running smooth.