When I showed what I'm doing to a friend, specifically what I'm doing to implement following and private content as implemented by well known social networks, he remarked that I'm just replacing one walled garden with another. He seemed happy with the explanation on why this is not the case, so I'm going to share it here.

The motivation for this project comes primarily from me being tired of the modern internet - and by that, I actually mean walled gardens. Judging by the conversation we had, it doesn't seem that there is consensus of what is meant by the term "walled garden". In general, the metaphor works by equating the account system with a wall and the content provided by the application with a garden. Obviously. But this is missing the point, as many things that are not "walled gardens" can be fitted into this model. Your home, with its coziness bounded by walls. Playgrounds with fences guarding the equipment. Instagram. A folder on your server protected by a .htaccess file. The crucial part of the metaphor is actually in the placement of the actors and their mobility. Walled gardens are hard to leave, and there is little to no interaction with the outside world, which is best left ignored. Walled gardens are like prisons.

Looking at the examples above again, none except for the social network are like prisons. Homes and playgrounds are keeping the ones inside safe, unlike prisons which bring safety to the world outside. Likewise, the mechanism I'm building is keeping the inside safe. I want to be able to share personal photos with people I know and trust - the same people I'll gladly invite to my home for a cup of coffee. There will be texts I'd like reviewed, and files I would otherwise upload to the cloud. At the same time, I fully intend to make most of the content public, and for this no special access won't be needed. Both of these use cases are what the old internet is good for; communicating directly with people you know, and meeting new friendly people and saying hi.