I agree. As much as some people in the world want App.net to be, the majority of the world doesn't care. After all, even Twitter took years to be accepted by the main stream users. Are your mom and dad on Twitter? If the answer is no, then even Twitter hasn't succeeded yet. Without millions of users, neither will App.net
The majority of the population is used to paying money for services, but they pay to the services where they have no other choices - telecom companies. They do so because phones used to be a luxury, then a necessity, and I think they still are a necessity. You can't just wish your iphone into sending a message, you got to have it connected to some network.
Even if Dalton raised the .5mil and built the network, the network won't grow and without growth it will soon stagnate and die. He could then, of course, open the network up on a freemium model, which may be an interesting experiment, but chances are at the end of the day advertising money will be the only source of truly meaningful revenue. After all, if Facebook and Twitter are giving you everything for free and only asking for your ad clicks, why would you want to pay? I mean, I know why, because you want an open network without ads. I mean, if you had a choice to buy milk and cookies for your child or to buy a month's worth of social networking ... I sure hope you pick the cookies.
The majority of the population is used to paying money for services, but they pay to the services where they have no other choices - telecom companies. They do so because phones used to be a luxury, then a necessity, and I think they still are a necessity. You can't just wish your iphone into sending a message, you got to have it connected to some network.
Even if Dalton raised the .5mil and built the network, the network won't grow and without growth it will soon stagnate and die. He could then, of course, open the network up on a freemium model, which may be an interesting experiment, but chances are at the end of the day advertising money will be the only source of truly meaningful revenue. After all, if Facebook and Twitter are giving you everything for free and only asking for your ad clicks, why would you want to pay? I mean, I know why, because you want an open network without ads. I mean, if you had a choice to buy milk and cookies for your child or to buy a month's worth of social networking ... I sure hope you pick the cookies.