Re-doing social networks based on one size fits all social activity streams seems like it's going in the wrong direction. Especially since these social shapes typically necessitate funding requirements like ads or pay to play.

I wonder when we'll go back to forums to connect. Earlier "slow social" methods (mailing lists / message boards). Forums can be free. People can self-host. They can run for years and years and years. Folks can organize around a single subject or a series of subjects and grow together over time at various levels of engagement without resorting to a one size fits all model that social networks force on users.

I really enjoyed running forums for my friends. I never had to pay giant server fees because it was just a few of us. We had 100K page views per month. We never had to have ads. We had forum permissions and mods and a lot of fun times.

I see Discord being similar to this vs. social media, where you can slowly join communities and get nearer to the core. More of an onion model of community. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in this space.