About a month ago the App.net State of the Union blog post was published by the App.net crew. Like for many other App.net users it was surprising and sad at the same time for me, too. Surprising, because App.net just worked, without any severe problems so there was no reason to worry about it. Sad, because although it does continue to run it is a sign that something did not work out as planned.
There were many reactions to this post. Some of them really great. But others just made me angry. Especially some tweets from people who admittedly have an App.net account, but either just crossposted their tweets or aren't active on App.net at all. They think they know the community. And they pretend they knew right from the beginning that this would happen sooner or later.
But actually, for all the "normal" users nothing really changed. The changes mainly affect the App.net developers and the App.net crew itself. The DIP (Developer Incentive Program) was discontinued to reduce costs. I have an app registered for the DIP myself but I don't really miss the DIP. I do see the advantages of the DIP of course. The DIP should make it interesting for developers to create apps for App.net. But at the end of the day I don't need the DIP to develop for App.net. I'm working on Filapp together with Dennis (@thedan84) and we will continue to work on it! When I've received the email from App.net about the future of the DIP, I had the idea to donate the remaining earnings. After talking with Dennis about it and we agreed to make the offer and it was thankfully accepted by the ADN crew. It's not a big amount but we figured that App.net could make better use of the money right now.
I've seen other efforts to support App.net like gifting normal accounts to other people. For me this is what's so special about this community. If there's a problem there are always people willing to help out if they can.
Personally, I'll stay on App.net until the servers shut down. And not only will I stay, but also continue to develop for App.net.