The social network path is closing

For a brief moment, in the early 2010s, Path prospered. The social network, more personal and more private, would have already been evaluated at 500 million dollars, but after years of irrelevance, it stops next month. The road has failed unequivocally, but I can not help but wonder what would happen if we gave his original mission another try.

The application was created in 2010 by Dave Morin, a former Facebook employee, as "anti-Facebook." It is distinguished by a good idea: limits for friends. You could not add more than 50 people to your network during its first launch.

As Facebook has grown and our lists of friends have grown, Path wanted to be where you 've talked with the closest people. And for a little while, the idea seemed to work. Quickly, Google would have tried to swallow it. In mid-2013, Morin proclaimed that people were checking the application "more than a billion times a month".

Path's minimalist design caught my eye, but like most people, I've never really used it. Most of my friends were not on Path. They were too busy posting on Facebook and Twitter, and using neat apps like Hipstamatic.

Path did not win me back then, but as I read the first post on Path's blog today, I'm almost guessing. Ideally, the company originally hoped to be "the place where you will always feel at ease". Without a hint of sarcasm, Path said it was a "personal network" – not a social network – where life with your closest friends and family. He presented his key benefit as such: "Because Path is a personal network, we will always seek to create features that increase meaning and understanding among close friends.

It looks so cute today! But Path has maintained its artificial limit for years. This was an essential aspect of the app, and this limit of friends certainly slowed down the growth of the app, limiting the network effect that helped Facebook become the nightmare it is today.

In 2010, and even in 2013, I do not think this is the only way sentenced. At the time, society was tackling a real problem, namely social network fatigue, but the problem was not as relevant as it is today. Facebook had already taken control of the Web and the rise of Farmville had made the service very irritating, but there was still something new on Facebook. He had not yet fully taken our smartphones and he did not have WhatsApp or Instagram. We were still years away from the nauseating testimony of the Zuckerberg Congress.

It is possible that Path simply arrived too early, because the need for something like Path was not so urgent at the time. Facebook has not yet seemed unbeatable, and the app was not so relevant on a global scale. But today, now that Facebook has become the least personal medium of communication on Earth, where semi-automated actions like Happy Birthday Wishes are gathered on our Timelines en masse, the idea behind Path seems to charming, picturesque and good. It would have been nice if Path had actually accomplished its mission, instead of persisting until now in the dark.

According to his LinkedIn, Morin left Path in 2015. At that time, he was bought by the Korean technology company Daum Kakao. And then we forgot it. On October 1, the application will be removed from the application stores.

Earlier this year, there was talk of bringing back the old way. We contacted Morin for more information, although the application was declared dead, this seems unlikely. But still, I can afford to support the "personal network" in 2018. We do not need another iteration of Path and society itself does not deserve our sympathy. But I would still like to try another social network like this one, which is not too socially and artificially, even though I never bothered to give it a chance in 2010.

[Engadget, The Next Web]