back to article App.net: 'Good news, we've made money; bad news, we're all fired'

Ad-free social network App.net has clawed enough cash from subscription revenues to let it be "profitable and self-sustaining," – albeit without any employees. The surprising news was disclosed by App.net chief Dalton Caldwell in a blog post on Tuesday. Though the post indicates App.net is in rude health, it is not quite …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sure the news that there will be no employees will give a big boost of assurance to developers to continue to work with their API's. Have a problem, oh, well, best of luck then.

    How will support work? Do they put a post on fiver looking for help or Craigslist?

    Anyone who works for them should ask to be paid upfront and don't accept a check.

  2. ecofeco Silver badge

    Thank you, goobye!

    "Fekk you, we got ours."

  3. Scott Earle
    FAIL

    Pay to post?

    Wait - pay-to-post?

    App.net was pay-to-join, but posting was free.

    Be accurate with your glib throwaway comments, at least.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It sounds like a Pincus operation...

    I get to keep everything and you get to work for me for free or I fire you...

    How does that sound...?

    At least offer people working for free a tiny slice of a possible future pie, no?

  5. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Terminator

    "The bad news is that the renewal rate was not high enough for us to have sufficient budget for full-time employees. After carefully considering a few different options, we are making the difficult decision to no longer employ any salaried employees, including founders."

    In other words App.net has achieved sentience. Be very afraid.

  6. ZenCoder

    Unfortunately you do actually need a business model that keeps the lights on.

    The internet isn't free, you pay for the websites one way or another, and the sad truth is people prefer to pay in ads and having their data pimped out.

    It would be nice if enough people were willing to participate in a subscription or freemium model to make it viable but they are not.

    Their plan will work for awhile, but eventually something will happen that will require more than a consultant hired for a quick fix, and if there isn't money to pay for that something ... the site will die.

  7. OffBeatMammal

    tumbleweeds...

    sadly app.net never seemed to really gain traction except for a very small circle of folks. I like it, but compared to Twitter it never really offered anything new, and I know more folks using G+ than app.net so there's no real incentive to check it more than once a week or so.

    that said, Twitter is in the process of re-defining itself and I'm liking it less and less so maybe app.net just has to hang on until the time is right to do a Facebook to their MySpace...

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