

Ask HN: do you use App.net?  - sarhus

It started good, and there were interesting people in the platform. Now it doesn&#x27;t seem very active. Do you use it?
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freehunter
I always hear talk about "if you're not paying for it, you're not the
customer". App.net was designed to solve that: you pay for it, so there's no
ads, no privacy intrusions, and no worries about who is selling you to whom.

I guess the experiment failed, and free-to-play wins out.

~~~
jmnicolas
A lot of the SAAS offering usually say something like "for just the price of a
coffee a day you can get our service" but If I was to pay for every services I
use daily I would need a third job.

~~~
alien3d
if server fail or service down.you pay peanut get monkey. cheap service quite
dangerous unless depend on big investor.

~~~
tudborg
epic poem

~~~
jshimko
Maybe a haiku?

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kylec
I cross-post my Twitter posts to App.net with IFTTT. I'd like to use it more,
but I'm not satisfied with any of the desktop clients, and most people I want
to follow are still active on Twitter, meaning I need to follow both.

I still support the service and its goals, and hope it will still be around
the next time Twitter does something user-hostile so there's an alternative
for people to consider.

~~~
hsx
There's a lot of quite good ones. Cauldron[1] works on Mac OS X, Linux and PC.
There's also a list of apps available here[2].

[1]: [https://cauldron-app.herokuapp.com/](https://cauldron-
app.herokuapp.com/)

[2]: [https://directory.app.net/](https://directory.app.net/)

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rip747
i never really understood what they were trying to do.

even going to their about page
([https://app.net/about/](https://app.net/about/)) doesn't really explain
anything. there are no screen shots, only common buzzy worded language, no
depth of explanation on benefits of using the product.

~~~
tyrelb
agreed... i'm not sure if it's a consumer product (like twitter) or for
developers... the .net throws me off...

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jaegerpicker
No but thanks for reminding me that I need to go cancel the subscription I
have with them. I think it was a neat idea that just shows how difficult it is
to overcome the inertia of the established social networks.

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mikestew
I don't use it anymore. I jumped on it when App.net switch to its current
incarnation from <whatever it was they used to do, I forget>. Paid the $50 for
the developer key. Looks over the docs, posted a thing or two, then never used
it. From a development standpoint I guess I never really got it. After looking
at the other apps out there for inspiration, which were all Twitter clones, I
guess no one else "got it", either.

Helping me "get it" lands at the feet of App.net. But a mass of corporaty
buzzwords isn't going to fix that. Someone else mentioned the mistake of
directing users to the Alpha app. Yup, it's just a paid version of Twitter, I
guess. And App.net did _nothing_ to dissuade me of that idea. Nothing in their
pitch, nothing in the API docs (that I saw) indicated to me that there was
more to do than post short pieces of text. Telling me it's a "platform" is not
useful. Pointing me to an API and saying "here, we have user storage!", "over
here we have a picture API", now those kinds of things would be useful and
would persuade me that it's not just paid Twitter.

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mikeash
I never understood the point, personally. App.net was created to fix the
problems with Twitter. But to me, the root problem with Twitter is that it's
centralized, and App.net doesn't even try to solve that.

~~~
sp332
App.net is not a twitter substitute, and I think it was a huge mistake for
them to direct new users to the "Alpha" app which is a twitter clone.

 _But if you’ve heard of App.net at all, you probably equate it with a Twitter
clone. It’s not.... “App.net is a social platform,” says the company’s founder
and CEO Dalton Caldwell. “It’s your passport to a social network of great
applications. I’m trying to get the idea across that you can bring your data
with you from all these different applications.”_

www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/08/the-great-app-net-mistake/

~~~
mgkimsal
I get that it's a "passport to a social network of great applications". But,
as far as I can tell, that social network is still centralized, no? Am I
missing something?

~~~
sp332
Yeah, it's centralized. It's a storage space with a nice API for putting
contacts, conversations, photos, etc. Edit: it also has a nice big "export
data" button that will dump all of your data from all app.net applications you
use.

~~~
ronaldx
Yeah, and that's a big problem.

If I'm motivated to move away from existing social networks for any reason,
it's because they are centralized...

The fact that app.net is/was pay-to-play doesn't eliminate the issues of free-
to-play at all: it still has the same issues (and moreover: less virality) but
now I'm paying for them.

------
zimpenfish
I've got an account but since I mostly use Twitter for bots etc., App.net
loses out. Although there was some new stuff recently (metadata? PUBSUB? I
forget) which made me think it was time to have another look at it.

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dkoch
Signed up for an account when they started offering free, didn't really
understand the benefit because no one was there.

I have not been back.

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AznHisoka
Looking at all the responses posted so far, and it's pretty clear: App.net is
a solution to a problem that doesn't exist (or it's a poorly executed solution
to a painful problem)

Honestly, who cares about an API that lets you post, or read messages if
there's nobody on the other side that will read your messages? it doesn't
matter if I can make 1 billion calls a day.

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Joe8Bit
I've been thinking about this recently, as like others in this thread I too
have't used it in a while, but I think it's less indicative of the quality of
the premise behind App.net (pay = no ads + privacy) than how little I notice
Twitter ads and consequently how little they alienate me onto another
platform.

~~~
andyhmltn
Same. Twitter ads never bother me. They always appear to be mildly relevant
and I barely notice them

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coke
App.net Broadcasts is pretty cool, using it on my Android:
[http://blog.app.net/2013/11/21/announcing-app-net-
broadcast/](http://blog.app.net/2013/11/21/announcing-app-net-broadcast/)

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richf
Used it and loved it when it was the mobile app landing page service, paid the
$50 for the new reincarnation during the backing phase -- never used it since.
Wish I got my money back, actually.

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bluetidepro
I used to, but don't anymore. It's like Google Plus, it's just spam on there
(it seems like). Or it's just a bunch of tweets pushed to it, which defeats
the purpose.

~~~
csixty4
The Global feed is depressing. It's almost entirely spam. Not like "hey, check
out this article I wrote" kind of spam, but more "cheap nike shoes gucci
purses prada [http://example.com"](http://example.com").

There's some neat Dropbox-like apps that make use of the API, but I don't know
enough people who use App.net to give the social features an edge over
Dropbox's ubiquity.

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Shank
I use it for Broadcast -- I have Broadcast set to send me a news story if it
reaches 500 points on HN, and a few other sites that I like a lot that don't
update frequently.

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andyhmltn
Tried it for a few days but I haven't used it since. The appeal of twitter
isn't the concept anymore it's the fact that everyone else is using it

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icantthinkofone
I never heard of it till this news came out.

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kristiandupont
I used to use it, when it was a service for mobile app landing pages. The
twitter-replacement I've never tried.

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photorized
No. Looked at it a year ago, didn't feel like signing up.

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munimkazia
Not really, no. It's been ages since I've logged in.

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fs111
tried it once, but did not like it, since everybody is on twitter anyway

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jeffcarroll
Not really anymore.

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almosnow
I never really got what app.net is. Is there someone subscribed? Can you
explain more?

~~~
tempodox
Seems to be like Pinterest, without the pin. I don't get it, either.

