Comment by guywithahat

The thing about twitter is once you do pay for a checkmark, you get a ton of traction and boost. And there is a certain amount of logic to it; if you're willing to pay $8 how badly do you really want to grow your reach.

It is frustrating though, because it makes it slightly harder to find communities of people who just want to have fun but it's better for people trying to grow a service.