What good is a social network or protocol without a lot of users?

First a personal flip to this question. I was on mailing lists, usenet, irc, silc, kyberia, facebook, … Everytime it became too crowded, I left. Not with a statement, rarely it was even a decision. I did not even burn any bridges and I don’t think anything bad about people who stayed. I just stopped going, because the noise (and sometimes drama) was too much compared to the signal.

I’m not an introvert, but in this regard something similar - otrovert. I like interactions, I don’t get group rituals.

So what good is a social network without numbers to back up reach? I used to work for a web portal of a TV station. I think one of the worst investments there is is buying a lot of reach. Maybe if you sell mass market shampoo or junkfood, it makes sense. For every other case, you want limited reach. Limited to people who want to hear from you. They might or might not know that they want to hear from you, but the second it feels you intruded their attention, you lost a good customer. And that’s true regardless if they buy from you or don’t. There’s an aftertaste of force.

People often hate the practice of marketing, but I realize it’s because they were exposed to so much junk. It’s like saying you hate Chinese food because you only went to shitty restaurants and got food poisoning. Go to a five star Chinese restaurant.

I get it, the shitty marketing way outnumbers nice, honest marketing that you want to hear.

So what good is a social network without reach?

You want to reach the right people. Those that want to hear from you. Of course small doesn’t mean it’s the right fit. Promoting scammy shitcoins or junkfood on Nostr won’t work, we don’t care. But the story is more complex than numbers.

And personally - I’d rather not read bullshit with breaking as the first word. And “this changes everything”. I wish there was more content that I’m interested in. But this also has a flipside. A lot of content that I’m interested in is just not on other networks.