I think we need to think of social protocols less as a technical solution and more as what I'd describe in my day job as a 'business process'. Sure, part of this will be tech-enabled and parts will be fully automated, but I feel that what is really lacking is an internet etiquette that can be abstracted over different channels or platforms.

Consider Facebook. With the friend request it invented a new social protocol. It was based on an underlying technical need (this platform will allow you to message, interact with and view the content of this target user) but became a social contract (I assert that I know and am willing to interact with this person on a level where they can see my daily updates and information that I have chosen to share). This was incredibly rigid and binary, but essentially shaped the social media landscape and affected the way that users, especially early users considered their friendships and acquaintances.

Also its a bit out of vogue now, but there was a massive 'thing' of the facebook relationship status being some kind of social registry.

If anyone has read the 'Kingkiller' chronicle books by Patrick Rothfuss, I would imagine a 'social protocol' to be something like the 'rings' system from the city of Severin. Simple ruleset, but allows complex social emergent behaviour and could be abstracted over different mediums or communications channels.

Only that the concept of a friend and a friend request existed before Facebook.

Sure, but I'd argue the Facebook friend request is different to, say, the MSN friend request. One felt like adding someone to an address book, the other felt like officially adding someone to your circle of friends.

Probably subjective, but therein lies the insight into why Facebook is so culturally significant.

Well, I don't see how it's very much different from, say, LiveJournal friend request (except that it doesn't have to be mutually accepted) or a similar feature of MySpace (I think they had it too) or even last.fm.

i feel like https://webfinger.net/ provides some of the technical side of the 'business process'

I think your last point is a key point in this. Such a protocol wouldn’t just need to match what’s already available by centralized services. Like Email or HTTP before it, it’d need to be innovative in and of itself.

If Snapchat were an open Facebook implementation, it would not have taken off.

It likely would need some compelling user-focused feature/gimmick + rock solid UI in order to get a foothold in the market.

However, the real innovation would be in managing the cryptographic keys in a way that is both secure (within parameters) and dead simple for end users.

This is the part where someone starts shouting "blockchain!" Not sure if that's the solution, but with enough smart minds thinking about it I'm sure a there's a way.

You need to build trust with early adopters which is through clear explanation . You need good branding too, as part of tapping into user behaviour psychology - things need to be easy and flow well, needs to be immediately understandable and intuitive to some degree, without being so shallow as to being hype or potential propaganda. Blockchain may be the answer or part of the answer, I personally hope incentivized blockchains won't be successful for their unnecessary downside/unreasonable value extraction/subtle reallocation.

> My grandparent's aren't going to host and configure their own blog.

My grandparents didn't set up their own Facebook account either. We (mainly my mom, I think) did it for them. You could help your grandparents set up a blog, then show them how to post to it (think something like WordPress or Ghost, not a static site using Markdown and Git). After all, they had to learn the Facebook interface too.

> You could help your grandparents set up a blog

I had some extra server space after a side project a few years ago and offered to set up Wordpress blogs for my mom and a few friends. Most of them were basically never used. My mom kept up near weekly posts for a year and a half or so, but it's been several years since her last post. I bet I could delete them all right now and it would be next Thanksgiving before they noticed.

But, they're always asking why I'm not on FB.

Because there's no social confirmation for their posts. They have no idea if people read them or liked them.