another relevant post im thinking about:

https://sunbeam.city/@polotek@social.polotek.net/113403543752658256

People might say "everybody's doing it". But that's the judgmental version. The reality is that people want to be where other people are. That is part of their interests. So it might more sense to think of it as people making tradeoffs. We can still be judgmental if we believe it's not the right tradeoff. I'm just saying that the network is only as valuable as the people who show up.

there's another quote I'm thinking of too that I can't remember right now, but is something like the true value of a social network software is as a "catalyst for the network" -- from this perspective, the value of a network is not just the software itself, but the combination of software and timing that it was created that brought a certain set of people together (large or small)

I love this way of thinking about it... as a catalyst... also was one of the beautiful and special properties of ssb (just at a smaller and more niche scale, than these big networks which are sort of like "a common record/standard" that people congregate around for a time)