[cargo8]

I think "gatekeeping" may be a bit of a strong term for what's happening here.

I get where she is coming from, and it is something that should be acknowledged by the users of the site. The key point here is that the GOAL of App.net is not to cater to a different market (those able and willing to pay $50 to have an ad-free real-time network with control over their data).

This is just the economic impact of charging something for a service - it will limit the audience that will buy/use the product.

In particular, I think the comparisons to Hacker News and Quora are exactly what it will be like. Quora is a fantastic Q/A site, and as much of a fan as I am, it still has not reached the completely 'mass market' that yahoo answers is used by. In the same sense, Hacker News has very different content on average than, say, Reddit.

So long as the content creators (users) of App.net realize their audience and the effects that have been created by the circumstances and economics of the network, then it will still make sense.

So perhaps the call here should be for people simply to realize that App.net will never be Twitter. And /maybe/ that's a good thing.