I've never used Clubhouse, but to play Devil's advocate this is what people said about Facebook in its very early days. A product that appeals to Ivy League kids goofing around on each other's walls and showing off their favorite books. Why would that ever gain widespread adoption.

I think the lesson is that the impulse to imitate high-status people is very strong. Even when the behavior has no intrinsic value to the average Joe. If a social network gains a reputation for where SV entrepreneurs or "thought leaders" or Harvard heiresses hang out, then many people will flock to it regardless of what the actual experience is like. When Facebook opened up to a new campus, students would sign up en masse without even realizing what the product was.

This is a very insightful point. There is already a culture meming the imaginary April rooms where the "rich and powerful" gather to do insider-deals. You see this with all the get-rich-quick rooms, "thought-leader TedX" rooms, and "insightful conversation about social issues" rooms. It's a big pretend-land where everyone can partake what they imagine the "upper-crust" talks about. Someone made a point of people showing up at Soho house in 2020 (after it has "sold out") wearing designer clothes they got at the outlet, not knowing it sends a different signal. The truth is ... the only "consequential" people that frequent clubhouse are there to promote a very specific agenda, using the resident population as fodder to their cause. It's a stark microcosm of the inequalities in this society, and how consumer culture does not address the inquality, but rather just veil it in ignorance.

I think it was @default_friend on Twitter who made that point about Soho house[1]. I found the overall thread[2] to really help me understand the status dynamics of CH, reminding me of the Status as a Service essay[3] by Eugene Wei.

[1]: https://twitter.com/default_friend/status/135961816878890598... [2]: https://twitter.com/default_friend/status/135961480306553651... [3]: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service

I don't think Facebook was ever a "perfect trap for the VC/PM class". Quora was, though - from the outside, Clubhouse really reminds me of the early days of Quora, with a nucleus of densely connected Silicon Valley elite drawing in a crowd of early adopters.

Quora ended up being like if Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn had a baby. I expect Clubhouse to go in a similar direction.

VCs and entrepreneurs have been trying to replicate the FB/Harvard/private rollout thing since FB did it. I can't think of any other cases where it worked though. Very much a cargo cult decision.