App.net Core Values

App.net is a for-pay social network, https://join.app.net/

Their core values are pretty great:

1. We are selling our product, NOT our users.

We will never sell your personal data, content, feed, interests, clicks, or anything else to advertisers. We promise.

2. You own your content.

App.net members always have full control of their data and the fundamental right to easily back-up, export, and delete ALL of their data, whenever they want.

3. Our financial incentives are aligned with members and developers.

App.net's financial incentives are entirely tied to successfully delivering a service you can depend on and that you would pay for.

4. App.net employees spend 100% of their time improving our services for you, not advertisers.

Rather than waste engineering time developing new ways to sell your personal data to advertisers, 100% of our engineering and product team is focused on building the most innovative and reliable service we can.

5. We are operating a sustainable, predictable business.

App.net will always have a clear business model. We know that depending on services that could go away or desperately squeeze users for more and more money is a toxic cycle. We want our ecosystem to rest easy that App.net is built on a financially solid foundation.

6. We respect and value our developer community.

We believe that developers building on our platform are increasing the value of our service, and thus our financial interests are fundamentally aligned. We hope developers build large, robust businesses on top of our platform. We pledge to never shut down developers acting in good faith, even if it means that we will forgo some huge future revenue streams.

7. Our most valuable asset is your trust.

Many people have become so cynical about user-hostile, privacy-violating social services that they refuse to participate at all. We can understand why. Earning your trust is the most important thing we can do. It won't be easy, and we will make some mistakes, but we will do our best to be honest and transparent.

App.net doesn't need millions upon millions of users or celebrities to be successful; it just needs interesting people I care about following, and a healthy third-party ecosystem to support it.

The free Internet is a wonderful thing, provided the price isn't our privacy and sanity. If they fail, though, the Web may end up looking a lot like App.net.

There's even a new kid on the block that aims to do it a better way, opting to build a real-time platform like Twitter, wholly unsupported by ads.

App.net is to social media what Amazon Web Services is to the rest of the web—a platform for you to build your application on (making the App.net name itself sheer genius).

Tempering all their noble statements is the fact that App.net still seems to be a for-profit company. The "Everybody's Voice, Nobody's Noise" sort of network Visions Unite will be is a bit closer to this sentiment...

DHH @dhh 18 Nov

I wish more of the centralized Internet treasures like Twitter would be run by foundations like Wikimedia rather than venture capitalists.