Why do people have to pay for themselves? I’d pay for me and my social circle. I’m sure there are lots of people who would pay for their friends. Most people h

Why do people have to pay for themselves? I’d pay for me and my social circle. I’m sure there are lots of people who would pay for their friends. Most people have like 4 good friends, max, anyways. The rest are really just acquaintances, who may be on the network because someone else sponsored them. And that’s how it can start off. Me and my close friends. I don’t really talk to the whole world so I don’t need the whole world on it. But if I have an acquaintance who is on the platform then great, we can connect on there, too. And it doesn’t have to be a ridiculous sum. The company can still be very profitable with charging only $1/person/month. With 5 people that’s $60/yr. Facebook makes ~$25 per person in the US and Canada. That works out to 1/5 of facebook’s per-person profit. If a company made 1/5 of facebook’s profit (at facebooks scale), it would be an incredibly successful business. Plus, facebook has a bunch of crappy UI that exists for the sole purpose of shipping ads. Without the incentive to ship ads to the user, the experience for the users would be waaaaay better. And without the need to collect and analyze so much data about each user, and then manage an ad distribution platform on top of that, the costs of running the platform would be lower.