You Either Die A Hero Or You Become The Villain
Over the past month, I've been watching Dalton Caldwell's App.net experiment with much interest. Essentially, he's trying to rebuild Twitter from the ground up, only as a fully user and developer-supported network.
Context & Ripple Effects
Dalton Caldwell’s audacious App.net proposal followed a longer-running interest in decentralizing Twitter-like communication. App.net’s pitch is a user- and developer-supported network rather than a service financed through the platform model that had frustrated some Twitter developers.
With three days remaining in its funding drive, App.net was reported to be 70% funded and already attracting developers building applications. That makes the experiment a test of whether direct user funding can support both the social network and its developer ecosystem.
First-order effects
- App.net gains an early developer constituency before its funding deadline, giving Caldwell’s alternative a chance to compete on application support rather than only on its critique of Twitter.
- Twitter faces a more explicit alternative for developers dissatisfied with its platform-policy changes, even though Twitter retains the far larger sharing activity cited in the related coverage.
Second-order effects
- Third-party app makers must weigh building for Twitter’s established audience against backing App.net’s paid, developer-aligned model, making platform governance a product-selection criterion.
- A successful funding close would validate direct payment from users as a way to finance a social feed without relying on the incentives that shape ad-supported platforms.
Third-order effects
- If developer and user funding can sustain a social network, social-platform competition shifts from features alone toward who controls the network’s rules and economic model.
- The broader pressure is toward more accountable network infrastructure: communities and developers seeking alternatives when a dominant platform’s policy changes alter their businesses.
The trend: App.net is an early test of whether social networks can replace advertising-led platform control with user-funded, developer-participatory governance.