> It's not clear that people started with "little confidence" in the concept.
IMO it's pretty clear. Find the 20 nearest people, ask them if they would pay for a social network. I would be amazed if one said yes. Just because through the power of Kickstarter and heavy word of mouth on blogs they managed to scrape together enough people interested in the concept to hand their money over doesn't mean people in general have a ton of confidence in an idea like this.
A small group of technical users had a lot of confidence in the concept or too much extra money. Do people in general? No. It's like asking them to pay for a browser or a search engine, simply unheard of. If you don't believe me, consider how many gullible users distribute those "they're going to make us pay $5 a year for facebook spam this wallpost a million times to stop it!" things even now.
> App.net just got funded for much more money.
Do you honestly think we won't be here on HN a year from now, discussing the exact same story but with App.net in place of Diaspora? I don't see this as a positive either, handing unqualified people with no plan huge sums of money multiple times doesn't fill me with joy. It makes me nervous, like the millions flying around for crowdsourced video games.
> The undiscriminating enthusiastic community now knows better what to look for -- it's learned a little the hard way, like any investor must.
You do realize that con artists use the exact same excuse, right? You live, you learn? It's a pretty terrible justification for mismanaging a project into the ground.
I also feel you'll quickly find out that without the "undiscriminating enthusiastic community" these projects will go mysteriously unfunded. I would think twice about happily burning your biggest bridge if I were you.
> Diaspora proved there was interest and tested a longshot idea.
They could have left that task to someone who was going to execute well, too. Also, not a positive. This would have happened the moment anybody competent launched the same project. Also, they wouldn't have helped breed distrust amongst the few people that are willing to fund this sort of thing.
IMO it's pretty clear. Find the 20 nearest people, ask them if they would pay for a social network. I would be amazed if one said yes. Just because through the power of Kickstarter and heavy word of mouth on blogs they managed to scrape together enough people interested in the concept to hand their money over doesn't mean people in general have a ton of confidence in an idea like this.
A small group of technical users had a lot of confidence in the concept or too much extra money. Do people in general? No. It's like asking them to pay for a browser or a search engine, simply unheard of. If you don't believe me, consider how many gullible users distribute those "they're going to make us pay $5 a year for facebook spam this wallpost a million times to stop it!" things even now.
> App.net just got funded for much more money.
Do you honestly think we won't be here on HN a year from now, discussing the exact same story but with App.net in place of Diaspora? I don't see this as a positive either, handing unqualified people with no plan huge sums of money multiple times doesn't fill me with joy. It makes me nervous, like the millions flying around for crowdsourced video games.
> The undiscriminating enthusiastic community now knows better what to look for -- it's learned a little the hard way, like any investor must.
You do realize that con artists use the exact same excuse, right? You live, you learn? It's a pretty terrible justification for mismanaging a project into the ground.
I also feel you'll quickly find out that without the "undiscriminating enthusiastic community" these projects will go mysteriously unfunded. I would think twice about happily burning your biggest bridge if I were you.
> Diaspora proved there was interest and tested a longshot idea.
They could have left that task to someone who was going to execute well, too. Also, not a positive. This would have happened the moment anybody competent launched the same project. Also, they wouldn't have helped breed distrust amongst the few people that are willing to fund this sort of thing.