I think the point is to provide value to the investors. In either case, I disagree; Twitter provides all kinds of valuable information to very specific groups of people.
I don't think they click ads, I see friends checking out ads all the time. Particularly music ads. I'd imagine that it's not just a small-time thing, considering they're in the green now, but perhaps that money's coming from something else.
Their ads are also a lot better than they were a year ago. They target more effectively, within reason. (My ads are screwy since I list no information about myself, but they used to try and sell me Arrested Development t-shirts and they almost succeeded on multiple occasions.)
But back to the original article, all I have to say is that Google sure has changed a lot since those early days. ;)