HN user
A lottery is the only sensible way they can handle the increased demand for tickets. I was saying they should have done this two years ago. It just makes so much more sense. No getting up at 6am and madly refreshing a page. It's just a much more considerate and friendly process. Similar to receiving a callback from customer support instead of sitting on hold for thirty minutes.
I read that title as "Furry" at Facebook. I guess I need to put on a second pot of coffee.
I think realistically Twitter needed a good crash reporting service for their own applications. They didn't want to build it themselves, so they bought Crashlytics. They get the best crash reporting utility completely tailored to their needs and keeping the service up and running for others is just an added benefit. Maybe they'll be able to monetize it down the road, but for now they get crash reporting on the cheap.