zlacker

>>antina+(OP)
This is an unfortunate, but not unexpected, end of an era. App.net was created at a time when discontent was high with how Twitter was treating its users and 3rd party app developers. Even though App.net wasn't hugely successful, its existence provided a needed check against Twitter exercising user-hostile control over their platform.

However, it has not been a viable platform (one that people actually used) for many years, so while I am saddened that it is finally being shut down, I'm not surprised. Many thanks to Dalton and everyone who built it and kept it going these many years!

>>kylec+a1
Did Twitter actually do anything in response to App.net?

>>tlrobi+t1
App.net came out in 2012, and while I can't really remember the specific areas of discontent that I experienced with Twitter back then, here's an article I found:

http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2013/01/14/twitter-in-2012/

I think what everyone was worried about back then was that Twitter was changing the nature of what Twitter was. Twitter started placing limits on API tokens, introduced new UI in the form of cards, which could also be used for ads, etc. There was a sense that the freedom and openness of the Twitter platform was quickly diminishing.

Twitter's response was basically no response, but in a good way. They slowed down making those sorts of radical changes, and to this day you can still browse Twitter with a 3rd-party app like TweetBot and never see cards or ads.

>>kylec+G2
This is my first time hearing of App.net.

(This is something that happens for me regularly -- I "discover" something only by its shutdown notice making the HN front page...).

>>groovy+es
You realize that when App.net launched, it was on the front page of HN and with much discussion (relatively speaking)? Given your account's age, you were here. In 2010, Bitcoin made the HN front page and you could get 5 BTC for signing up for an email list; 3 years later 1 BTC was worth over $1k.

>>narrow+Lw
Sure, I realize that. But it seems I missed that initial event, and then everyone fell silent about App.net (nobody really continued to buzz about it).

Whenever stuff like this happens, I always wonder how many people, like me, hadn't heard of some service or product, and I wonder how many of them would have used it if they had. Would it have been enough to save the company from going under? Was it a marketing problem? I dunno, that's just the kind of strange places my mind tends to encounter in its errings.