This is what Facebook was when we all signed up almost two decades ago. No one ever wanted a feed of people they didn't know. Free social media is inherently corrupt as they chase profits abusing the user base.
Facebook was refocusing on friend and family content before TikTok came along. But they had to adjust to the TikTok trend otherwise they would have lost market share or potentially lost the entire market.
You might think you want friend and family content, but actually you don’t. Not as much as you want engaging content.
You might want friend and family content, but engaging content will increase your dwell time and profitability as a user, often against your will.
I want the former, not the latter. Social media is optimized for the latter.
VC-backed corporations masquerading as public services to gain user networks they can later monetize is the problem.
No, VC money is what enables the entire multi-billion-dollar loss-leading front end effort that creates the network that is sold in an IPO.
No one else will take that level of risk, and the first eight years of its existence wouldn’t occur without VC money.
You’ll also notice how I didn’t say VC money was the problem. That was a long list of very specific qualifiers I wrote that you strawmanned very efficiently.