In December, Vine cofounder Dom Hofmann suggested there would be a second coming of the dearly departed social network. We all got excited for it—at the time, Motherboard staff writer Samantha Cole wrote her “hopes are all the way up” for a Vine sequel.Sorry, Sam! Hofmann announced on Twitter and in a forum post Friday that he was “postponing the V2 project for an indefinite amount of time.” Hofmann wrote that, though he planned on self-financing V2, it no longer seems like a viable project due to the “larger-than-expected audience.”
“We now know that the estimated costs for the first few months alone would be very high, way beyond what can be personally funded,” he wrote. Hofmann said he’d also run into legal issues with fees that “have been overwhelming.” He didn’t elaborate on what those were, but one could reasonably guess that perhaps Twitter—which bought Vine and later shut it down—wouldn’t want a clone of the service popping up.Hofmann said that it’s possible that he could pick up the project later, but that he’s “taking a step back.”“This is indefinite, which means that it could take a long time,” he added. “I’m very, very sorry for the disappointment.”