App.net Redux

Two posts that I think sum up the App.net movement:

So App.net won’t have ads — but I also hope it’s a long time before the Biebers, Kuchers, and their idiocratic, smeghead fans discover the service. I wonder, just a little bit, if my attitude makes me out to be a jerk. I think it probably does — and I think, in this case, I don’t care.

— Brent Simmons

I do worry that it will become successful and Twitter will bring down the hammer on App.net for blatantly ripping them off.

— Stephen Hackett

At $50 per year, App.net will never go mainstream. It feels a bit like someone realized their favorite club just became popular with the unsavory and “uncool” so they created their own exclusive members-only club.

I backed App.net because I think competition is good, which makes me feel dumb for even considering it. But for right now, the only effect App.net has on me is that I don’t want to use either network. The people I like have mostly left Twitter and the reason they left is because they don’t like the people on Twitter.1

There is a chance people believe this will have an impact on Twitter. I think that is almost certainly not going to happen. Right now they have 10,000 backers. That makes no difference to Twitter’s 500,000,000 user base. That is 0.002% of Twitter. That’s how many people join Twitter while Jack Dorsey takes a leak and I imagine $500,000 is how much they spend on urinal cakes.

I’ve heard the arguments saying that App.net is about sending a message to Twitter. I’ve heard that it is about creating a developer friendly Twitter. I’ve also heard it is about putting users before advertisers. I think App.net is more about wanting to cut-off an entire segment of Twitter’s users and paying for the privilege to do it.

  1. I could be way off base and I definitely don’t know the mindset of anyone, including myself. I’ll probably regret even writing this. ↩︎