You re making a good case about why twitter is overrated as a medium and should not be taken seriously. the vast majority are crazies, who don't matter. The rich men are interested in controlling it because there is a small minority in it, the journalists, who are using it as a measuring stick and as a way to coordinate their stories. While that's true, those journalists are not a particularly sticky crowd and will move elsewhere if some or other rich man thinks he can control them. I think substack is their next campsite, and it could easily launch a microblog timeline.