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Comment by look_lookatme | Hacker News Reader

Just to be clear, app.net is a centralized messaging service, to be owned and operated as a private company, allowing integration to whoever it sees fit, at whatever cost it sees fit?

The upside is they promise not to show ads?

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No, the upside is that as app.net relies on people paying money, the users are customers instead of being the product.

What's the product then?

I think it's the service that is the product.

Have you taken a moment to read anything about it? It is abundantly clear.

join.app.net, in case you really haven't, which I'm hoping is the case.

That's no answer. As far as I can tell, the product is people willing to pay for their message updates and then a rev-share between the apps that allow them to do it, and Dalton's service.

If that's your idea of a product... good luck.

Could someone who has an answer to these concerns post a link for the rest of us? For instance, what restricts app.net from limiting access to the API in the future, or from upping the price severely once it's gained more traction?

If app.net turned evil people would stop paying and then app.net would go broke. That's the theory, anyway.

Seems like a pretty crappy theory actually. Why are thoes things not built in an unchangeable charter (or something like it).

Also FB is making $1 per year per user atm (storing photos,messages and heaps of other stuff). Why does dalton need $50 per year to store 140 character message?

Edit: Turns out there is a charter called "core values"

My guess is that he's asking for $50 because he doesn't want to attract people who won't extract significantly more than $50 worth of value.

Regarding your comparison to FB: price is certainly not just about cost; it can also be about establishing the right signals to potential customers and non-customers. In this case, I suspect the signal is "if $50 doesn't seem like a great deal for this product, you're not the target customer".

Aside from attracting a particular kind of customer just by setting a price at all (e.g., eliminating huge swaths of automated spammers), this can potentially create a positive network effect. If you're someone who wants to follow a social news feed, which society sounds better: the one where everyone involved cared enough to put up $50, or the society where botnets can easily create thousands of accounts per day?

There's a lot to be said about free-for-all ecosystems; but they're not the only solution.

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