The sort of simple mistake the Twitter folks make all the time

Twitter recently caused a brouhaha by stopping people from "following" more than 2000 other folks. I was among the outraged, as the limit keeps me from following interesting-seeming people who have already chosen to follow me. Consider the scenario:

• I post a comment or question
• One of my 1000+ followers that I don't already follow too replies interestingly
• I see the reply
• I can reply back, but I can't keep other discussion going by following their tweets.

And by the way -- although I haven't actually run into these problems at the same time, Twitter also has for long stretches of time deliberately disabled the functionality that lets you see only direct Replies to you.

Much of the sting of this stupid decision would have been averted if there simply had been an exception for following folks who already follow you. (Most of the rest is due to the condescending explanation Twitter provides that boils down to "If we're stopping you from following more people, it's because our automation has determined that you deserve to have your wrist slapped.)

Much has been made of Twitter's general technical cluelessness. The only reason I haven't piled on (much) is because I've harped on how the system, even if it weren't such a clusterfrack from the getgo, needs to be utterly redesigned. But this is a separate matter. Twitter is alienating its most influential users in easily avoidable ways. When the company dies, as it most likely will, that will be its epitaph.