App.net isn't a solution. They are still a centralized social network, owned by one company. Sure, they treat users nice now, but what happens if the business model changes?

Second, it's impossible to get on App.net's social network without paying a significant sum of money. This means a truly diverse set of voices will never be represented on App.net. For more, see “You Can't Start the Revolution From the Country Club” by Anil Dash: http://dashes.com/anil/2012/08/you-cant-start-the-revolution...

I have the most hope, long term, for the Tent protocol: https://tent.io It's not ready for prime-time yet, and the existing hosting service is not entirely smooth. But anyone can set up their own provider. We could have some businesses that charge a few dollars a month, like App.net, and put users first, and other businesses that offer free service with ads, and it would all be on the same network, just like the competition among email and web hosting providers today.

Ostatus is a protocol that exists today, already proven with software (Status.net) and a community (Identi.ca)

Tent is at least equally proven. I'm following 157 people (maybe ~50 are consistently active users). Within only a few months of existence, Tent has attracted development of an Android app[1], two iOS apps in beta[2], a very smooth and sleek OS X app[3], and several alternative webapps[4], all made by third-party developers with no relation to the startup that created the Tent protocol.

I don't mean to be rude or dismissive towards another open-social project, but I have been unimpressed with the design and usability of Identi.ca. OStatus seems to be the work of idealistic folks who hoped they could just make an open protocol and people would flock to it, solely because it was open. Predictably, that hasn't happened. Open is great, but software also needs to provide a great user experience. I think the Tent community gets this.

Tent is also more than a Twitter clone. It already supports private posts, long-form blogging and social bookmarking, unlike OStatus, and in the months ahead it will do much more.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.monstarlab...

[2] http://signup.tentrapp.com/ and http://bivy.me/

[3] http://jabs.nu/Tentia/

[4] http://zelten.cc/, http://essayist.mndj.me/

I'm not quite sure what the advantages are between one protocol or another, but I'm also not sure why there have to be two camps of development when one standard can be hashed out.

I do know that the status quo of having a single private company dominating the space is not ideal and would love to see any alternatives take root.

I should have put this in my last post: “Why not OStatus”, from the Tent authors themselves: https://github.com/tent/tent.io/issues/4

The tl;dr is that Tent is much broader in scope than OStatus while being, at its core, simpler.

Exactly!

That's why I think App.net. is great!

It's hard to have a consumer product with subscriptions as business model, but I think worth the try. This way you treat the people who make you pay the bills with the respect they deserve.

See @graue's post above :)

I agree with @graue, descentralized services are better for their users. At least on theory. But I don't have any problem in using a good service provided by a company. Many things I can't live without were created by a company aiming to gain some money. The main point to me is focus on please your customers. So if a company do this, it will have my money.

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The issues I have with App.net is that their claims of "we won't screw the user" don't really have any legs to stand on. No company starts out wanting to screw users. But when it comes to turning a profit sometimes you have to put users second. There's nothing built into App.net's model that would prevent that.

Federation bakes that into the model from the beginning. So they're making core claims that aren't built into their core model.

I'm happy to pay for online services like App.net but I wish their messaging would have more sustenance.