> But back in the 2000', a lot of "social network" were IRC server/channel and forums. And they were often small and meant for a specific community/hobby/interest.

I was never a heavy IRC user, but yeah back in the 00s, especially the earlier two-thirds, I had several different forums on my browser hotbar that I’d make the rounds through a couple of times each day.

Kind of miss that honestly, each forum was its own unique beast with an entirely different set of personalities without also being polarized. Contrast that to modern social networks which have a samey grey-paste quality unless one seeks out highly polarized services, which are often too caustic to spend time in without risking becoming similarly caustic yourself.

You're speaking of a time when the Internet itself wasn't really thriving - it was barely a curiosity that didn't exist in the lives of the vast majority of people in the world in any way at all.

With all of their downsides, it's only huge social networks that actually brought the vast majority of people to the internet at all.

> You're speaking of a time when the Internet itself wasn't really thriving - it was barely a curiosity that didn't exist in the lives of the vast majority of people in the world in any way at all.

It was thriving for me, and I was barely a teenager at the time.

Many of us software devs are a different sort.

> The idea of a social network where almost all of your friend and family are on, is really something that started in the 2020'.

I would disagree with the timing here. I think the peak "everyone on one network" was Facebook in the early 2010's and since then the market has splintered to other social networks, sometimes along generational lines, others based on use case.

Yes absolutely, I fucked up and wanted to write 2010

There is a "vibrancy" to social networks that are growing that is difficult to quantify or even explain. I'm still on IRC, I'm still on some phpbbs that the average age of the users must be somewhere in the middle 50s, and which might get 10 new sign ups every year. They started out big, but the attrition is much greater than any growth (I doubt that most of the new signups even stick around).

That's why social networks seem so magical early on, not only is everyone you like maybe on them, but there will be new people in the next week, month, or year that you'll like too. New things and new ideas are possible. But at some point, this turns sour. Eternal September describes that phenomenon, I think, but doesn't explain it well.

In some unfortunate networks, I think the latter can come even before the former (preempting it, making it impossible). You don't ever get the golden age.

Mastadon looks alot like this. Ignoring the politics, it looks alot like Voat did, and all the "we didn't learn the lessons of Voat" reddit alternatives that came after. It's almost as if you can't build a social network as a refugee tent city and make anything that anyone wants. Maybe that's the problem. In such a place where everyone is fleeing, there is nothing new there. It's all the same old people who were at the last place with you, there is nothing new about it.