...facebook wasn't the first social network. To be clear, I'm not arguing it's a great idea. I'm arguing that it's not worth dismissing the work as ludicrous.

The fact that I'm arguing this on HN of all places makes me wonder what happened to the attitudes of hackers, geeks, and entrepreneurs. Let people do something dumb and fail. It's OK to do that sometimes. If it's dumb, don't invest in it.