Making “social” social again: Announcing Mozi

There are so many challenges with building a social app, especially around contacts... I'm not sure how they'll mitigate all this stuff, but fun to think about it and hope they do succeed in doing so anyway.

A few considerations off the top of my head:

- relationships are extremely fragile and can exist in all sorts of awkward middle states, outside of just "friend enough to notify when I'm in town" vs not. the risk of creating awkward meatspace side effects is extremely high with this kind of thing, with very large downside risk that human beings are very attuned to. for example: exes, former bosses or colleagues gone sideways, people you said something weird to once at a party, stalkers, etc. are all people you might have in your contacts

- relatedly, contacts growing out of sync organically over time is actually a feature, not a bug. it's easy to let contacts die when they die by themselves without having to prune them -- and nobody's delicate feelings get hurt by letting this happen

- existing on a mobile phone while not being an attention-sucking nightmare cesspool -- while also not /creating/ another attention-sucking cesspool, despite having all the social data necessary to do so -- seems like an impossible challenge. how do you get people to remember your little app in a sea of Trending Flamebait notifications? (others have noted this related to funding model, but that part feels surmountable, especially as a passion project from a billionaire)

“I realized I had spent too much time on startups and not enough on building relationships. So I decided the only way to fix it was another start up.”

Huh?

This is a very well done launch. We ought to be taking notes.

As for the app itself, it looks more like something niche Ev made in an attempt to enrich his own life than a business poised for growth. There is a place for that. I hope, anyway.

"The primary value proposition of Mozi (today) is simple: It lets you know when you’re going to be in the same place (city or event) as someone you know."

This is fairly shortsighted. How many people actually travel from city to city. I bet the vast majority of people have a 3km bubble around their house and work and that's as far as they travel 90% of the time. Additionally, it tracks when you are going to an event. At that point, you are already out of the house around other people.

I like the idea of an app that is "private. Non-performative. No public profiles. No public status competitions. No follower counts. No strangers." but I think it doesn't need to hinge on always going out and traveling. It should simply prompt you to check in with friends (not in the mental health status way) but simply "Hey, you haven't chatted with Sarah recently, say Hi" or "Steve's birthday is coming up, wish him a Happy Birthday". Simply just connecting with friends will perhaps result in "IRL" connections, but basing the whole app on connecting after those plans are made seems a bit "cart before the horse".

Lmao, this is exclusively for the wealthy jetset. Give me a break