I agree with you in general terms, but not on this particular issue. Things that rely on a network effect need to grow exponentially - at least at first, or they will die. The reason people use Facebook is because people use Facebook. The reason people do not use alternatives is because people do not use alternatives.
That said, Facebook at one time also had this problem and I think they solved it extremely well by making access feel like a privilege for you rather than patronage to them, by limiting it to exclusive universities. And then all universities. And then finally, to anybody. Google did the exact same thing with 'gmail beta' when invite codes were a sort of mechanism of making users feel like it was a privilege to get to use their software.
On the other hand, neither Facebook or Google was facing a competitor with billions of monthly active users approaching global market saturation.
>Things that rely on a network effect need to grow exponentially - at least at first, or they will die. The reason people use Facebook is because people use Facebook. The reason people do not use alternatives is because people do not use alternatives.
The question is how much of a network effect do you really need? You can't start wanting to take over the world. It works a lot better to start small, with one niche group or community and work from there. This has been how rival social networks have taken off in the age of Facebook.
Discord targeted gamers, Snapchat targeted hipster teens, Signal targeted political activists, FireChat targeted the music festival scene, etc.
If it works well, the feature sets are generalizable, and your social groups are resistant to cooption into or bullying by neo-nazis and the alt-Right you can grow from there.
I agree that network growth is essential in this case, but burning investor money is not THE solution to this need. There are better solutions to achieve that level of patronage and exposure. They'd have to innovate for such ways though.
For example,
Let the early users generate badges that they can list on current social networks so that they can brings their friends in.
Incentivise quality content by directly adding up to one's storage/other limits. Example, if 1000 users like your post, then you get extra MB for your photos or some other benefit.
Let the influential/early users(who bring many of their contacts into the network) have first dibs at new features that makes them feel cool.
or any other marketing strategy that people write books about :-)
That said, Facebook at one time also had this problem and I think they solved it extremely well by making access feel like a privilege for you rather than patronage to them, by limiting it to exclusive universities. And then all universities. And then finally, to anybody. Google did the exact same thing with 'gmail beta' when invite codes were a sort of mechanism of making users feel like it was a privilege to get to use their software.
On the other hand, neither Facebook or Google was facing a competitor with billions of monthly active users approaching global market saturation.