Not really. I'd have to dig for references (one of the site's failings is terminally flawed search), but it really was an artists' & designers' space.

That orientation allowed them to make additional pledges, including ad-free and no tracking, and yes, they did pledge that. But the SNpivot came after the initial interest boom in September, 2014.

From Crunchbase: "Ello was originally built as a private social network. Over time, so many people wanted to join Ello that we built a public version of Ello for everyone to use."

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ello-inc#section-ove...

An early interview with Paul Budnitz (founder):

https://www.businessinsider.com/interview-with-ello-founder-...

I've cooled on the site myself, though think it might work, in its niche.

It was. Turns out that’s really hard to do.

Especially when you take a bunch of venture capital: https://ar.al/notes/ello-goodbye/

Note that that was written when they had taken $435,000 in VC, and now they're up to $11M: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ello-inc

Not exactly an unbiased take from Aral considering he tried to launch a social network where "you were not the product" around the same time too.

I’m genuinely surprised they’ve lasted this long.

And ... it turns out there's just been a management coup.