[TomAnthony]

I didn't realise until this article that Alpha != App.net. Now that I do, a couple of problems spring to mind:

* For startups, user acquisition often remains the biggest hurdle to success. Here they have to sting the user for a monthly subscription even to try the app. Asking people to open their wallets is going to massively reduce the people a startup get through the doors.

* There are billions of active users on Facebook. It is the de-facto platform for interaction for most people. Why does the user want to change? Saying "but now you won't be the product, the platform will be" won't make clear to most users what advantage their might be. They'll respond "so I have to pay to be connected to less friends?".

* The two above problems are cyclical and exasperate one another.

I like the idea, I just think there are a lot of problems that are going to get in its way.

[jokull]

Exactly. I’m afried App.net will die soon if they can’t figure out how to appeal to anyone trying to build a business (not hobbyists making free apps, because charging your users to create an account has be a negligible part of your value proposition). The only way to fix this problem is by having a generous free tier or by allowing the app pulling in new users to remain free forever, for those users you brought in through your app.

As an app creator, even in this situation, where the user gets a free ride in your app because she’s a first time App.net user, you’re asking a lot from the user. When user acquisition and retention is your bread and butter, placing a huge level of complexity at the signup step, explaining what the hell an App.net account is, it’s basically strangling the acquisition part, and you never, ever, want to do that.

Taking a step back, what problems are they solving anyway? Shorten time to market for app makers? Because social app plumbing is getting pretty cheap and easy to pull off at scale with IaaS. Besides ending up with something very limited. Using App.net to build your app must add value, either for the creator, or the user. I’m failing to see how it does either. Unless, maybe, if App.net login is an optional part of your app that could lover the already in-place pricing scheme for all users (failing to see when this would make sense, but it’s possibly I guess).

Conclusion: Ask yourself, what app in the past 5 years, could have been pulled off, logistically, using app.net plumbing?

[dasil003]

> Taking a step back, what problems are they solving anyway? Shorten time to market for app makers? Because social app plumbing is getting pretty cheap and easy to pull off at scale with IaaS.

Huh? IaaS does not provide users which is the basis of social, anyone can write code which implements a social network, getting users is the hard problem. The problem App.net is trying to solve is to provide a social network that app makers can trust. Currently you can get awesome functionality from Facebook or Twitter, but as Twitter have shown so publicly, they will only tolerate you as long as they perceive you as providing a net benefit to them. If they see you as siphoning off any potential revenue for them you are dead in the water. Obviously Facebook is not quite as outwardly belligerent to it's developers, but the same rule applies. App.net addresses this by aligning it's business goals with the apps on its platform making money.

Now obviously App.net doesn't have enough users yet for it to provide the value that developers get out of major social networks. However App.net has a lot more traction—especially with developers—than the majority of attempted stand-alone social networks. What they need are a few wedge apps to create a virtuous cycle that attracts the attention of more and more serious commercially-oriented developers. It's a tough row to hoe to be sure, but they've been putting one foot in front of the other and I don't see them as being anywhere near failure yet.

[fakeer]

I am not sure if this business decision by Marco was made for the same reason I am speculating but I am doing it anyway - they recently opened the door for free users(invite only) and some usage limit which IMHO is the limit most of the paying users would be practically exercising unintentionally, because there just not many people to interact with. So, they just needed more users and instead of opening the sluice gate they made a crack in it; of course lowering the cost was another crack!

Besides, everybody who is on App.net is on Twitter/Fb and posts whatever they post on either sns.