Ignoring all of the other facets of app.net, because it's a paid service this almost by definition limits it's virality. I can't imagine that Vine or Instagram

Ignoring all of the other facets of app.net, because it's a paid service this almost by definition limits it's virality. I can't imagine that Vine or Instagram would have taken off if it required a subscription of $36/year or $5/month. Secondly, what is the benefit to the app developers themselves? Platform lock-in is one of the strongest tools that they have to wield, why would they willing give that up to avoid paying for an S3 bucket?