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Comment by ryguytilidie | Hacker News Reader

Along a similar line, the first thing I thought when I heard about App.net is how everyone who can afford it will now be cut off from the people who can't. No more news about uprisings in Syria straight from the source, no Occupy news straight from the source, no news from basically anywhere but NYC, SF and random other towns around the US but basically no input from anyone who doesn't have extra expendable income. Pretty sad really.

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At first I can see this. It would change if App.net gets crazy relevant. Maybe not as many direct from the source, but groups of dissident people could pool their resources to buy an account.

That also doesn't include the idea of sponsored accounts. Where App.net or charities in rich countries buy an account for someone in a conflict zone.

Or, you know, rather than deal with the risk of getting caught through the money trail that creates, they could just use existing free services like they already do.

Why on earth would a group of people pool money to create an app.net account when they could post a tweet for free? Statements like that make me feel like we are super, super out of touch. We're not talking can't afford to eat at Benu 5 nights a week poor, we're talking can't afford their next meal poor. When its food to keep you alive or a part of an app.net account to broadcast whats going on to americans, the choice is going to be pretty easy.

On the other hand, think of it as a never ending conference of a very specific type of crowd, a lot of the crowd from hackernews for example, who are connected to an extremely focused network, without having to deal with as much noise as they do right now on twitter/facebook.

You could stretch it to sound like a million dollar membership country club you want to be a part of because of all the potential investors who are hanging out there, and you want your idea heard.

The $50 entry barrier will not eliminate this problem, but reduce it a lot.

Also, didn't Dalton himself mention that this does not intent to be a twitter/facebook killer? Those channels will always exist and you can always check out trending topics if need be.

Just thinking out loud.

"On the other hand, think of it as a never ending conference of a very specific type of crowd"

That sounds truly horrific if most web design conference tweets and talks are anything to go by.