I.. agree, but I don’t think recreating existing platforms is a good idea either in FOSS or commercial projects. As you say, it’s already there.
> Network effects are just so powerful and people post to be seen.
Yeah, but those people aren’t moving the needle anyway, so they can be safely ignored, for now. They’ll come when it gets popular or trendy (see the recent mastodon influx).
Current gen social media is clearly not the end-all be-all. It’s riddled with problems, both because of the business model which incentivizes short-termism like clickbait, but also inherent problems in the social graph, feeds, etc. We’ve had at least a decade of experience to learn from the mistakes of the giants. Maybe this sounds elitist, but whenever I see a Twitter clone (say current gen Mastodon or Substack Notes) all I see is a lack of creativity and courage to face novel opportunities.