There are many many spammers in the world. There is no way we can dodge that fact, and no one is trying to. Unfortunately some of the services some of us hold dear have come up with their own methods of dealing with it.
Sure if I state that following a couple thousand people on a service is not enough for some it seems a little silly. Personally cannot imagine really following more than a couple hundred. But some of the more famous folks on the web have been hurt by Twitter and others presenting a ceiling to users.
Some would go on a tangent and discuss this being a terrible thing, but considering the number of alternative services available its not really a big deal. Since the initial blogstorm and scowling at screens has passed, people are either going to continue to use the neutered service due to its popularity or spread out somewhat amongst the competition. With many of the social services out aggregating content from the others, who is really going to notice?
Comic author, blogger, gamer, dabbler in web design. I dig tech, social media, movies and animation. Anything else, feel free to ask.