Retrospective application of Terms of Service and Subscription Terms for 'backers'

[matthooper73]

Given that a number of App.net accounts were created during the backing period, should the Terms of Service and Subscription Terms explicitly cover those accounts created during the backing period in order to make clear whether those backing period accounts are treated the same as or differently from accounts created once the backing period closed?

The premise for this question is that I believe there was limited definition prior to the end of the backing period as to:

1. What backers were actually backing - were they signing up for access to what has become known as 'alpha.app.net', were they signing up to gain access to the API (obviously yes, in the case of the developer tier), or were they 'investors' in a new service which is not complete - one that is still being developed and may 'morph' into something else all-together? To this day, it is not clear to me in terms of what has been formally published on App.net or in these proposed Terms of Service just what the subscription actually buys, going forward. The 'Service' appears to be defined as "App.net's website and service". (I understand that the service is still being developed and is not a finished product, of course, which makes definition difficult.)

2. What the funds that backers were putting up were going to be used for, post the backing period.

If the intention is that backer accounts are to be handled the same as accounts created post backing period, then my question is whether the Terms of Service should state this explicitly, and, perhaps more importantly to backers, whether the Terms of Service and Subscription Terms apply retrospectively to accounts created during the backing period, where, to my knowledge, backers offered up their subscription $$ without having any Terms or Service to subscribe to?

[katcaverly]

Matt raises some very good questions, and I too would love to get some answers, in the ToS.

[matthooper73]

Also interesting to note that Dalton seems to be talking about offering cheaper member tiers in the future. Would like to know what the 'status' levels for each level of backer are going to be..