I think you're ultimately right, Matt. But, I don't think there's a master plan at play. Its just that every incremental step makes sense to X, but eventually leads to too many people subjugated by yet another way too powerful centralized entity.

Right now the incremental step is to monetize the one thing Twitter can sell (attention) to a new group of customers (used to be advertisers only, now also users).

This centralizing force is pervasive and inevitable, which is why you're 100% right that we need to consciously reject it.