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There already was a huge trend toward niche social media, around the time FB was made. Stuff like Path, Diaspora, Bandcamp, and Yo. They were either cloned and destroyed by bigger social sites or they couldn't find enough traction in their niche.

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I think the big difference now is how these sites stay alive. Now that we know things like Nebula or Kagi can work using a paid model, more of these types of user-supported communities will pop up. What's interesting about this, I think, is that in order for places like these to collect enough users to support themselves, the creator class of the community will have to become famous on one of the free-to-publish communities, like Twitter or YouTube, and then encourage their fans to come with them to the paid community. I imagine at some point YouTube and Tiktok et al will start restricting these types of promotional material to retain users, which is not fun to think about.

Path used a paid model and still didn't survive.

It's true the techies who lament the decline of corner stores are now more excited about things like Kagi and I'm pretty sure a lot of their marketing is exploiting those feelings on niche sites like HN.

But really, how long have they even been alive? Path tried their best for years and then failed. I hope that maybe enough has changed that folks like Kagi can now survive since wishing ill on something being built isn't my way.

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