Funnily enough I'm of the opposite mind: users free and developers paying something like $50/month. I'd imagine placing such a price barrier there would vastly cut down on the abuse that twitter, for example, has to put up with.
Why? Developers will make money off it, the whole idea is that developers will never get screwed by app.net, and they introduced a developer incentive program to help compensate developers. If you're interested in the platform how is that not worth $5 per month?
Where is the guarantee that developers will -never- get screwed by App.net? Especially since the barrier to entry is $100? The DIP is a nice addition that will help those with solid ideas out of the gate, but they are still greatly restricting the developer pool by a pay-to-play model. Along with that, I still have seen no compelling reason to pay $5/month to be a member of a social network where there are sub-20k users who (I assume?) barely use the service.
App.net is just capitalizing on those annoyed with Facebook/Twitter developer policies. Great for their bank account and a really smart idea, but I still don't see value for anyone else. As someone else once said, "App.net is a social network for people who have $50 to show-off that they have $50 to blow." That's not a party I feel compelled to attend.
It's bad enough I spent $50 to read it. I'm not going to pay $50 more just to mess around with trying to create an app for it. It should be free with membership to create an app for it, and charge the $50 when the app has noticeable traffic.
I didn't realise they charged an extra $50 for developers. The original comment made it sound like he wanted it 100% free. I agree, they shouldn't be charging extra on top of the membership.
