(No value proposition is more accurately no value proposition for the site by itself. It does have a value proposition if it does billions of users like twitter, but that there is no realistic way of getting there.)
Basically, I could announce that I'm offering a service whereby you give me $50 dollars and I call you gullible. If I find 100,000 people willing to do that, it would mean that my service is "worth" $5,000,000 dollars.
The "worth" you're talking about does not seem to me as a very good indicator of whether we're improving the world or not.
If you're not involved in the transaction, you're not in a position to decide "whether we're improving the world or not". Millions daily spend ~$50 for an extravagant meal, far beyond nutritional needs, and having nothing but excrement to show for it. Would you discount those goods/services as "not improving the world" and not worth millions of dollars?
"Would you discount those goods/services as "not improving the world" and not worth millions of dollars?"
Yes. Considering how people actually starve because of speculation with food, and considering global warming, I wouldn't even blink when saying that makes the world worse.
So I'm all for stepping on that toe and see where it leads. Kinda like making wearing fur uncool -- why not? Where is the problem?
"We eventually raised $803,000 from over 12,000 backers during the campaign."
Twitter sucks but reproducing their network effect is a huge undertaking, especially when you're charging for it, and IMO 100k users as post-hype starting point is way too low for App.net to have a reasonable chance of succeeding before running out of money.
I'm willing to bet at least half of App.net users are bots used to incentivise people to join "to be a part of the club"