Exactly, there's no reason for this to be an app, other than the new business model. It's just a blog in an app, not a magazine. In fact, the content will either be from already-free web archives, or will be published later on the web for free. It is just a way to generate revenue from new/old blog posts on top of the web revenue.
I could see a business model for Daring Fireball and others where the linked list stays the same, but feature articles are published to their app blogs first ($1.99 subscription) and then after 3 days to the sites.
Good point. But remember, the 8% is presumably using third-party apps and not seeing ads now anyways. They would be willing to pay to continue to use the third-party apps ad-free.
Especially a bad policy because some of the business data associated with the photos is wrong. So, just because I don't want to associate a photo with a restaurant means the location data is deleted.
They should do it to make users happy. I'd like to be able to more easily use apps like Sparrow and Chrome, but it's tough when they can't be set as the default.
Developers will need to be paid somehow. Absent revenue sharing directly from App.net, that means it will have to come directly from users or from ads. Unfortunately, users usually choose ads.
Haha, very true. That's why it isn't working. The initial price needs to be much lower to reach their goal. Over time, as the service grows, I think $50 is eventually a fair price. But, way too much for a fledgling service with unclear benefits to the user.
I think better marketing towards regular users instead of developers would help to explain many of these questions. They really need to explain to people what value app.net is going to add and why it is better than the free, ad-funded, alternatives. They have not done a very good job of that and marketing the correct message can help.