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Ask HN: do you use App.net?

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Re: Ask HN: do you use App.net?

#41

Post by mikestew »

I don't use it anymore. I jumped on it when App.net switch to its current incarnation from . Paid the $50 for the developer key. Looks over the docs, posted a thing or two, then never used it. From a development standpoint I guess I never really got it. After looking at the other apps out there for inspiration, which were all Twitter clones, I guess no one else "got it", either.

Helping me "get it" lands at the feet of App.net. But a mass of corporaty buzzwords isn't going to fix that. Someone else mentioned the mistake of directing users to the Alpha app. Yup, it's just a paid version of Twitter, I guess. And App.net did nothing to dissuade me of that idea. Nothing in their pitch, nothing in the API docs (that I saw) indicated to me that there was more to do than post short pieces of text. Telling me it's a "platform" is not useful. Pointing me to an API and saying "here, we have user storage!", "over here we have a picture API", now those kinds of things would be useful and would persuade me that it's not just paid Twitter.

Re: Ask HN: do you use App.net?

#42

Post by sp332 »

mikeash wrote: post #40
sp332 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, except twitter doesn't like 3rd party clients, and Dropbox doesn't know about your twitter network.

Right, but a third-party app that talks to both Twitter and Dropbox can integrate them both easily enough. As far as liking third party clients goes, that's the sort of thing I'm getting at when I say that App.net doesn't solve what I see as the root problem with Twitter. Not liking third-party clients is just a symptom of centralization, and App.net just happens to solve this one symptom without addressing the root…

Any twitter follower you want to collaborate with would have to make a new Dropbox account, and that account wouldn't have access to any data that she already stored in a different application. So even if you made an app to bridge all these services, it would still be a huge pain.

Why is centralization a fundamental problem?

Re: Ask HN: do you use App.net?

#43

Post by AznHisoka »

Looking at all the responses posted so far, and it's pretty clear: App.net is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist (or it's a poorly executed solution to a painful problem)

Honestly, who cares about an API that lets you post, or read messages if there's nobody on the other side that will read your messages? it doesn't matter if I can make 1 billion calls a day.

Re: Ask HN: do you use App.net?

#44

Post by mikeash »

sp332 wrote: post #42
mikeash wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but a third-party app that talks to both Twitter and Dropbox can integrate them both easily enough. As far as liking third party clients goes, that's the sort of thing I'm getting at when I say that App.net doesn't solve what I see as the root problem with Twitter. Not liking third-party clients is just a symptom of centralization, and App.net just happens to solve this one symptom without addressing the root…

Any twitter follower you want to collaborate with would have to make a new Dropbox account, and that account wouldn't have access to any data that she already stored in a different application. So even if you made an app to bridge all these services, it would still be a huge pain. Why is centralization a fundamental problem?

People could use their existing DB accounts, I'm sure.

Centralization is a problem because it gives a single entity total control. That's why Twitter was able to screw with third-party clients in the first place, and why it mattered that they did it. Take e-mail as a counterexample: Google, for example, couldn't really screw with third-party e-mail clients, and even if they did, people who want to use third-party clients can just switch to a provider that isn't stupid.

App.net retains all of this control. They merely promise not to abuse it. I'd much rather not have to trust anyone's promises. Even if they remain completely honest, their idea of abuse may not match my own.

Re: Ask HN: do you use App.net?

#45

Post by mcintyre1994 »

sp332 wrote: post #34
mikeash wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying that, and yet I have no idea what else it does. "Your passport to a social network of great applications" is meaningless corpbabble.

App.net is a platform for writing social apps that all share the same social network. Try browsing the app directory https://directory.app.net/apps/web-clients/ or the API http://developers.app.net/ whichever answers your curiosity better.

I'm amazed Google haven't made this play yet. Between Drive which has a promising API and Google+ it seems like it could work amazingly. Sure it'd be centralised on Google, but that's no worse than app.net to me.

Re: Ask HN: do you use App.net?

#46

Post by sp332 »

mikeash wrote: post #44
sp332 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any twitter follower you want to collaborate with would have to make a new Dropbox account, and that account wouldn't have access to any data that she already stored in a different application. So even if you made an app to bridge all these services, it would still be a huge pain. Why is centralization a fundamental problem?

People could use their existing DB accounts, I'm sure. Centralization is a problem because it gives a single entity total control. That's why Twitter was able to screw with third-party clients in the first place, and why it mattered that they did it. Take e-mail as a counterexample: Google, for example, couldn't really screw with third-party e-mail clients, and even if they did, people who want to use third-party cli…

Uh... not everyone who has a twitter account also has a Dropbox account. But everyone who has an app.net account has a Patter account, and an ADN File Manager account, etc.

Re: Ask HN: do you use App.net?

#47

Post by mikeash »

sp332 wrote: post #46
mikeash wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People could use their existing DB accounts, I'm sure. Centralization is a problem because it gives a single entity total control. That's why Twitter was able to screw with third-party clients in the first place, and why it mattered that they did it. Take e-mail as a counterexample: Google, for example, couldn't really screw with third-party e-mail clients, and even if they did, people who want to use third-party cli…

Uh... not everyone who has a twitter account also has a Dropbox account. But everyone who has an app.net account has a Patter account, and an ADN File Manager account, etc.

Sure, but I'd wager that the set of people with both Twitter and DB accounts is vastly larger than the set of people with App.net accounts.

Re: Ask HN: do you use App.net?

#49

Post by hsx »

kylec wrote: post #26

I cross-post my Twitter posts to App.net with IFTTT. I'd like to use it more, but I'm not satisfied with any of the desktop clients, and most people I want to follow are still active on Twitter, meaning I need to follow both. I still support the service and its goals, and hope it will still be around the next time Twitter does something user-hostile so there's an alternative for people to consider.

There's a lot of quite good ones. Cauldron[1] works on Mac OS X, Linux and PC. There's also a list of apps available here[2].

[1]: https://cauldron-app.herokuapp.com/

[2]: https://directory.app.net/

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