"A thing is worth only and exactly what others are willing to pay for it." Obviously it's worth $50 to 100,000 people. Some of us would like an ad-free version of Twitter that, by paid signup, screens out much of the...um...less interesting participants. Sounds like they've got 100,000 users already, which seems a good start.
I've always thought that was a very shallow definition and this has just helped me finally realize why I think that.
Basically, I could announce that I'm offering a service whereby you give me $50 dollars and I call you gullible. If I find 100,000 people willing to do that, it would mean that my service is "worth" $5,000,000 dollars.
The "worth" you're talking about does not seem to me as a very good indicator of whether we're improving the world or not.
Obtuse straw-man hypotheticals do not make for convincing argument. To the contrary, the fact that you can't find anyone to pay you $50 to call them gullible shows that "service" isn't worth $5M. Unless, of course, you consider politicians...
If you're not involved in the transaction, you're not in a position to decide "whether we're improving the world or not". Millions daily spend ~$50 for an extravagant meal, far beyond nutritional needs, and having nothing but excrement to show for it. Would you discount those goods/services as "not improving the world" and not worth millions of dollars?
"$50 for an extravagant meal, far beyond nutritional needs"
"Would you discount those goods/services as "not improving the world" and not worth millions of dollars?"
Yes. Considering how people actually starve because of speculation with food, and considering global warming, I wouldn't even blink when saying that makes the world worse.
So I'm all for stepping on that toe and see where it leads. Kinda like making wearing fur uncool -- why not? Where is the problem?
100,000 is a terrible start, IMO. Many millions of people made Google+ accounts and while I like Google+ far more than Facebook, I'm still essentially forced into using Facebook because the overlap of Google+ users to people I care about following is virtually nil. I don't see how the same won't happen for the vast majority of users when it comes to Twitter/App.Net except it will feel even worse for the App.Net users since they blew 50 bucks.
Twitter sucks but reproducing their network effect is a huge undertaking, especially when you're charging for it, and IMO 100k users as post-hype starting point is way too low for App.net to have a reasonable chance of succeeding before running out of money.
Not necessarily. I could pay for something and decide afterwards that it was in fact not worth it and ask for a refund or simply not fall for it again. If this happens it doesn't mean the first exchange of $50 delivered $50 of worth back to me.
