The media is clearly benefiting, with many stories backed by a Donald Trump tweet. But if the tweets weren't free to begin with, they might not be as newsworthy.

> the media is clearly benefiting

Journalists certainly are. Getting quotes was hard work. Now it consists of trawling Twitter. Not sure if this has been a boon or bane for journalism, however.

> Journalists certainly are

In the short term, anyway. The substitution of Twitter-trawling for actual journalism and research is doing immense damage in the long run.

For full access to the twitter archive, they are, though a lot of data can be gleaned from what's publicly posted.

In retrospect I should have assumed that to be the case