Chat works well for close friends, but now I'm middle-aged I have lots friends from school, previous jobs, etc that I still want to know and I'm interested in significant events in their lives (having kids, changing job, getting married, moving house, etc) but who I'd have nothing to say to on a regular basis. If I rely on anything that requires active participation that just means I won't talk to them. I want to passively read about their lives, and maybe comment if I feel like it. Most of the time I don't.
This is a problem that you don't really start to understand until you're getting on a bit. When you're young you usually have a close group of friends from school or college, and maybe a job or two, and your extended family, and that's pretty much it. Fast forward 25 years and there loads of people who you've met and consider people you'd like to keep in touch with but who aren't friendly enough to want in a chat app. Social networks fill that gap really neatly.
Posting in a chat demands immediate attention from the participants. It feels "pushy"; I don't want to disturb my friends with my random ramblings.
It's also not really possible to compose a single, long, properly formatted story, interspersed with images, in chat. Every separate post will be a call for attention, if they have not muted you yet.
Ignored push messages can easily turn into forgotten messages. There is no "mark as unread".
Chat does not provide you with an experience of reading carefully crafted posts, on a moment you choose to spend reading only about what your connections have been up to.
Knowing what is happening in the lives of friends and family living in other countries is the only thing I really miss since I stopped using post style social media. Sure, we can chat, and sometimes we do. But usually we don't. You're just not going to chat about random little things in your life with people you don't see with some regularity.
This is a problem that you don't really start to understand until you're getting on a bit. When you're young you usually have a close group of friends from school or college, and maybe a job or two, and your extended family, and that's pretty much it. Fast forward 25 years and there loads of people who you've met and consider people you'd like to keep in touch with but who aren't friendly enough to want in a chat app. Social networks fill that gap really neatly.