There are effectively no success stories for Glass’s current business model. Small clones of Instagram and Twitter usually fail. To break out, there has to be something fundamentally different. For Micro.blog, the answer is simple: we are a social network but our business is blog hosting, a proven model. For Glass, the answer is less clear: they care deeply about photography, community, and design. I think the founders deserve a lot of credit for creating something beautiful. Is that enough?
My recent enthusiasm for Pixelfed comes down to being a good alternative to Instagram, open and not afflicted by a toxic business model. It might become a good alternative to Glass too if the latter doesn’t open up a little bit more to the modern world, post Meta-as-we-know-it.