[podperson]

But here's the thing -- will the twenty people you want on your perfect network be willing to pay $50/year to be on it and make your network perfect?

Bear in mind that each of them has 20 people they want on THEIR perfect network.

"The internet treats cost as damage and routes around it."

I think the key trick would be creating a "free" network that lets you pay (a very small amount) for key niceness, e.g. freedom from ads and spam. Even better, take an existing free service and piggyback a paid service on top of it that adds useful value. (I'm thinking here of email where you pay $0.01 to send a message per Bill Gates's excellent idea for eliminating most spam.)