Imagined an app that simply cloned the popular photo network’s features and asked users to pay for them in exchange for “not being sold” to advertisers.
Chill, Dalton Caldwell founder of App.net has a much more aggressive idea with App.net, you’re paying for access to the plumbing instead: your Twitter-like status messages are stored for your use, under your control, via 3rd-party interface layers (also known as “apps”) that App.net doesn't develop and has no business incentive to lock you into.
Dalton says that people won’t adopt a new social network just because it’s good for them, it needed to be “truly better.” That’s probably true.