The expectations for a storage service are entirely different from those for a social network. Customers rightly “freak out,” as [Dalton] Caldwell [a founder of App.net] says, if an ISP tries to privilege certain kinds of data or if a storage service like Dropbox changes the privacy or licensing provisions in its terms of service. When Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram try to exert similar kinds of control, customers who do freak out are routinely told that they’re being irrational or that they had no right to expect any other kind of treatment from a free service that needs to be supported.

This may be odd, but it’s a combination of whether we see data as abstract or concrete, and the different ways we understand paid and free systems. Nobody’s evil, and nobody’s stupid, says Caldwell. (Well, maybe the anti-net-neutrality guys might be — ed.) It’s all just a natural consequence of companies’ business models and our evolving expectations toward payment and privacy on the web.

—Tim Carmody’s post on what app.net is becoming is really smart, even if you don’t care about app.net or what it’s becoming.