This is private sharing, not a social network.

Private sharing is about sending content to people A, B, and C (“push”). Think iMessage, WhatsApp, Snapchat.

Social networks are about people discovering your content (“pull”). Think Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Threads.

The two differ in important ways: dynamics of how they work, how they grow, what consumers care about in a product, what success looks like, tech stack, etc.

The author is conflating the two.