[rthomas6]

Facebook's solution was initial exclusivity to college students. This made it cool to high school students. Then once high school and college students were all on it, their parents eventually got on.

So maybe we could shamelessly copy that exact model for the new federated open-source Facebook replacement.

[rolandog]

But wouldn't that mean we won't be in there? Until, and if, it gains traction?

Edit: also, are we the problem?

[maceurt]

> If we could just copy their model to acquire customers then....

Then you would be competing with every other social media startup along with the social media sites that have pretty much limitless resources.

Say your website is a success however, you basically have two options: go public and turn into facebook eventually, because your duty is not to the site anymore, it is to the shareholder and to the dollar.

or

don't go public and never get off the ground, because you won't be able to keep your programmers or compete with the tech giants.