Why

Our ability to communicate with each other defines who we are and what we are doing on this planet. Communication is absolutely vital, and with it our ability to argue effectively, to collaborate frictionlessly.

It seems self-evident that we should seek openness and accessibility in our communication infrastructure, from the apps that connect us to the network, to the hardware that connects us to each other. Openness is not a prerequisite for goodness, but it can certainly help.

Because Twitter is bad for arguing, has a lot of repeat responses, has bad conversation support, and in general, was built without purpose, and is used without reason, to some good, but mostly noise.

A better Twitter, built on the argument engine that is GitHub, designed to turn communication into collaboration, with a clear, and opinionated monetization strategy.

The backend is all free open source. Our stuff is covered under the Lemurs Learning License. You can't sell it, but you can use it to learn, and learning starts with building it on your machine.

That's how it starts, and that's how it sits, waiting—until you want changes. Then you'll be told again and again to just make the changes yourself, maybe in collaboration with others.

Before you know it, you're got your own API keys, are implementing your own features, and are swapping features with others using pull requests.

If you can figure out how to build an app, you can join for free in every sense of the word. If you would rather not bother with that stuff and just buy the app and be done with it, it will cost you $40.

That's right, $40. If you don't think it's worth it, you can fork our repo.

But you know what? It's going to be worth it, because it's going to be a great tool, and your friends are going to use it, and you're going to have to deal with them using the web interface, and that's going to get frustrating. Then your friends are going to show you the app, and you're going to want it, in the same way that we want it.

And that's why.