Hence Dalton Caldwell's "Audacious Proposal" and the birth of App.net.

https://join.app.net/

So we have a walled garden network fucking over its users, and you think the solution is to replace it with another walled garden because its rulers are supposedly more benevolent? That's not very ambitious. Think bigger. StatusNet/Identica is free, open source, and (most importantly) federated.

I have wondered if an updated version of nntp would have worked.

A walled garden lets anyone in, but not out. You're thinking of something more along the lines of a gated community.

No, I'm thinking of a walled garden. https://www.google.com/search?q=walled+garden+twitter

Ah, appears we're both correct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walled_garden_(technology)

"... refers to a carrier or service provider's control over applications, content, and media on platforms..."

"More generally ... refers to a closed or exclusive set of information services provided for users"

No, i actually think just he's correct. It's OK to be wrong though, so no big deal.

Though I do disagree with his sentiment. I think App.Net is a perfectly good alternative to Twitter and every attempt at open, federated services since the original one (eg www) have failed to catch-on.

www was not the original federated service. E-mail is still around and quite successful.

Usenet is dead now, but worked for quite some time.

I know, I joined.