Wasn't app.net an attempt to be a paid Twitter? I don't disagree with this being where things needs to go, but I feel like you either need some critical mass o

Wasn't app.net an attempt to be a paid Twitter? I don't disagree with this being where things needs to go, but I feel like you either need some critical mass of initial users (what college students were for Facebook), or you need exclusive content (Obama and then Trump really made Twitter the place-to-be for political discourse), or if it really is a "utility", you need it to be a monopoly (like the phone system). So the real question to me is, which of these will it be? Part of me wonders if the next social network might be something that arises in the halo of a place where people already spend money online to have social interactions— Twitch being an obvious example, but even the non-social streaming services are candidates for this. Everyone has and pays for Netflix. What if part of Netflix was access to a no frills, bullshit-free social network? That would be a pretty wild pivot, but they have the resources and technical expertise, and they sure have pivoted before.