App.net
Users paid for it, and it still was not enough
App.net was a social network paid for by its users instead of by advertising, crowdfunded in 2012 by more than 11,000 backers who put in about $750,000. It paid developers a monthly pool to build on it, ran out of growth by 2014, and closed in March 2017. The argument it was built to settle is still going.
Timeline [edit]
- 2012
-
13 July 2012
Launch
App.net changes purpose
Mixed Media Labs announces an ad-free, subscription-funded social network.
-
13 August 2012
Funding
The crowdfunding target is met
About $750,000 from more than 11,000 backers.
-
1 October 2012
Feature
A $20,000 monthly pool for developers
Split according to how much each application is used.
- 2014
-
May 2014
Decline
Maintenance mode
Running, but no longer developed. The team moves on.
- 2017
-
12 January 2017
Shutdown announced
Two months' notice
Caldwell cites years of falling revenue.
-
14 March 2017
Shutdown
App.net closes
The code is open-sourced.
The site through time
Browse app.net as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:
Ownership [edit]
Key figures [edit]
| Metric | Value | As of | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registered accounts | 11,000 | 13 August 2012 | Confirmed Backers of the crowdfunding campaign, which raised about $750,000 |
Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate
Why it shut down [edit]
Official line: Announced on 12 January 2017 that the service would close on 14 March. Revenue had declined for years and the service had been in maintenance mode since May 2014.
Our analysis: App.net proved the thing everyone still argues about: people will pay for an ad-free social network, but not enough of them, and not for long enough. It raised its crowdfunding target and then could not convert paying enthusiasm into renewals, because a social network without your friends on it is worth less every month.
History [edit]
Paid, on purpose
In July 2012 Dalton Caldwell announced that App.net would become an ad-free social network funded by subscriptions from users and developers. The reasoning was the one that had just been proved by Twitter: a network paid for by advertisers eventually serves advertisers, and the developers who build on its API are the first thing sacrificed.
The crowdfunding target was $500,000. It was met on 13 August 2012 and finished at roughly $750,000 from more than 11,000 backers. Posts could run to 256 characters. There was a web client called Alpha, but the point was the API, and third-party applications were encouraged rather than tolerated.
It went further than encouragement. From October 2012 App.net divided a $20,000 monthly pool among developers according to how much their applications were used, effectively paying people to build on the platform.
The chicken and the egg
It never got big enough. Caldwell put the failure plainly when it ended: developer adoption exceeded expectations, but it never turned into a large enough pool of paying customers for those developers to build a business on, and without their applications there was less reason for users to renew.
By May 2014 App.net was in maintenance mode, running but not being developed, with the team working elsewhere. Revenue fell every year after that.
Closed, and open-sourced
On 12 January 2017 Caldwell and Bryan Berg announced the service would shut down on 14 March. The code was open-sourced so somebody else could try.
Nobody argues that the idea was wrong. Mastodon, Micro.blog and Bluesky all descend from the same complaint. App.net simply asked people to pay for it in 2012, before the thing it was reacting against had gone far enough to make them want to.
The domain today
app.net belongs to an unrelated business selling AI and digital products. It has no connection to the social network described here.
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Sources [edit]
- App.net, the ambitious project to build a better Twitter, is finally dead TechCrunch 12 January 2017 [archived]
- App.net dies on March 14th, 2017 Engadget 13 January 2017 [archived]
Last verified: 13 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).