[rootusrootus]

That is an angle I had not considered, thanks!

It seems like a chicken & egg problem, in some ways. A business that was built more traditionally than a unicorn could still make good money at $10/user/month, certainly it's possible to build Facebook-level social networking without employing nearly as many developers as they do. But without the network effect, the value is not there. I don't want to pay to be by myself.

Maybe it could work as a SaaS, selling distinct social FB-style closed social networks to families, with a future option to interconnect those.

Probably someone has already tried this and failed. I'm not an idea guy, just a coder ;-)

[pkaye]

I think app.net (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net) tried that approach and failed to get traction.

I view it kind of like Craigslist. If I put something there for free tons of people are interested. If I charge even a dollar the interest drops by a magnitude.