Netropolitan is a social network for the rich, costs £5,517 to join

Are you tired of all the riff raff on Facebook and Twitter? Do you wish you could converse with some classy, nay wealthy, people online? You probably want to sign up for Netropolitan, a social network for the upper tiers of society — the rich. So rich, in fact, that you have to be willing to spend $9,000 (£5,517) just to join.

But that’s not just a one time payment, if you want to stay a member of Netropolitan you don’t just have to be wealthy, you have to stay wealthy. Because the formerly rich are even worse than the not-rich. Fees for your first year of membership amount to $6,000 (£3,6777) and renew annually at a cost of $3,000 (£1,838). If you have that kind of money to spend on membership for a glorified chatroom then you really do have plenty of money to burn.

There are also a few requirements that maintain the illusion that Netropolitan is an exclusive club. Firstly you can’t divulge the identities of various members to non-members, and you can’t take screenshots and post them anywhere in public. So it’s just like being in an exclusive members club, but without all the hassle of face-to-face interaction with other people.

According to CNET Netropolitan will not share how many members it has, but it did divulge that it had several hundred members sign up at launch. In fact, the traffic to the website after launch was so high that the servers crashed, and the upgraded servers are struggling to keep up with everything.

Screenshots have been posted online, and the service looks like a stripped down version of Google+ (because that’s so popular among the masses), and the service even has a page advertising itself on Facebook. As you can imagine that page is littered with sarcastic comments from snarky internet users.

Want to read more? Here’s our coverage of the recent Apple announcements, including everything you need to know about Apple’s ‘phablet’, the iPhone 6 Plus, and smartwatches buying guide, or if you’re sick of Apple completely, here’s our rundown of our 14 favourite dating apps, from Tinder to eHarmony.