Path, Circles, Close Friends: the apps that tried to be small

Every city has a café like this. Six tables, a counter, an owner who knows how you take your coffee. You love it because it’s small.

Then it gets popular. A second room opens. Then a terrace, then a menu with photos on it, then a second branch across town. Nothing about it is bad. It’s just no longer the place you loved.

Social apps have been through the same story more than once. Philos isn’t the first app to bet on small. Here’s what happened to the ones before us, and what we took from them.

Path: a limit of 50#

In November 2010, Dave Morin and his co-founders launched Path, an iPhone app for sharing photos with your closest people. Its boldest idea was a limit: you could have only 50 friends.

The number wasn’t random. Morin borrowed it from Robin Dunbar’s research on how our relationships come in rings of roughly 5, 15 and 50. We wrote about those rings.

A year later, with Path 2, the limit rose to 150. Later it rose again, to 500. In September 2018, Path announced it was closing, and the app shut down that October.

We don’t know everything that went on inside Path, and we won’t guess. But the numbers tell one part of the story plainly: the limit that made it different kept getting bigger.

Google+: life in Circles#

In June 2011, Google launched Google+, built around an idea it called Circles. Instead of one big friends list, you sorted people into groups, like family, school friends or colleagues, and chose which circle saw each post.

It was a good idea, and it came to a network that was already huge and public. When Google announced the end of the consumer product in October 2018, it gave its reasons in public: low use, with 90% of sessions lasting under five seconds, and a bug that had exposed some users’ profile data. A second bug brought the closing date forward. Google+ closed in April 2019.

Instagram’s Close Friends: a list inside a crowd#

In November 2018, Instagram launched Close Friends: a private list, so you could share some Stories with only the people on it. Nobody else can see your list, and nobody can ask to join.

It showed how much people wanted to share with fewer. But Close Friends is a room inside a stadium. The rest of the app is still built around followers, public profiles and a feed chosen by an algorithm.

BeReal: once a day, from France#

In 2020, two French founders launched BeReal. Once a day, at a random moment, everyone got the same alert and had two minutes to share a photo from the front and back cameras at once. No filters, no time to stage it.

It struck a nerve. In 2022, its downloads rose by more than 300%, and Apple named it iPhone App of the Year. In 2024 it was bought by a French games company, and today it sells advertising.

What we learned#

Each of these apps found something true. People want to share with fewer. They want to choose who sees what. They’re tired of performing. We agree with all of it.

But the stories also suggest three lessons, and we built Philos around them.

1. Small has to be the product, not a setting. A Close Friends list inside a public app is still a public app. On Philos there is no public side at all: nothing is public, and there are no followers.
2. The limit has to stay put. Philos has 49 places. It’s not a starting number, and the heart in our logo has exactly 49 dots.
3. The business can’t depend on growth. An app paid for by ads needs more people, more time and more posts. Philos has no ads, not ever, and your data is never sold. We’d rather you closed the app.

The café that stays small#

Some cafés do stay small. The owner says no to the second room and keeps the six tables. It’s a choice they make again every year. We intend to make that choice too.

Questions people ask

What was Path?

A social app launched in November 2010 that limited you to 50 friends, inspired by Robin Dunbar's research on close relationships. It later raised the limit and shut down in October 2018.

Why did Google+ shut down?

Google cited low use of the consumer product, with 90% of sessions lasting under five seconds, and bugs that exposed some users' profile data. It closed in April 2019.

How is Philos different from Close Friends on Instagram?

On Instagram, Close Friends is one list inside a public network of followers. Philos has no public network at all. Everything goes only to the people you choose, from 49 places.