Maybe Bluesky has "won"

I think the fundamental issue is running a social network as a for-profit business. Every business model people have tried so far has ruined the platform for the people who originally found it valuable.

Online services do scale, which is the root of the problem. It's more profitable to focus on a large number users who get a little value from the platform than on those who find it particularly valuable. No matter whether your revenue comes from ads or subscription fees, you want more users, more impressions, and more activity. Which turns your focus away from whatever the early adopters did when there was only a little activity.

Influencers are a convenient red flag. Once they find a platform attractive, it's probably no longer good for activities not centered around them.

We don't actually want online communities to get too big, from a users' perspective. After a certain size, they become difficult to maintain any sense of responsibility to the established culture, become targets for coordinated manipulation or misuse and end up requiring constant moderation just to be usable.

But taking venture capital means you can never restrict growth, even if in the end it kills your service.

I'd love to see a Reddit that caps its communities to a thousands or even hundreds. Once that cap is hit, either form a new community or join a waiting list. But it's clear that a hundred passionate users often produces a much better discussion than millions.