I'm just a user, but the gist behind the "restrictiveness" is weeding out the chaff and avoiding the flood of quantity over quality that's overly present on App.net and other networks and content aggregators.

The entry policy will be much more open later on, once it comes out of alpha/beta/whatever state, but for now, a personal contact with the founder and CEO, Sandi, is all that's required, just so she gets a sense of you being a real person who knows what they're talking about.

Would you like an invite link so you can see if the content is (or can become) to your liking? Anyone who would like one should feel free to ping me via geekli.st, (http://geekli.st/Swader)