Forgetting People: My Problem with Path
Don’t get me wrong. I love Path. I love the interface, I love the idea, but I don’t love one thing: the lack of a web app. I don’t consider this a small grievance, I consider it a serious impediment.
Path is all about building an intimate social network of your closest friends and family. That’s wonderful. But it only has apps for iPhones and Android phones, and smartphones are still outpaced by feature phones. Therein lies the problem.
Of my best friends, only one has an iAnything (it’s an iPod Touch), and none have an Android. This isn’t because of some sort of hatred of smartphones or anything like that, it’s because they can’t afford them.
So, by not having a web interface, Path has forced me to exclude them from my network. Sure, they can see what I autopost from Path to Facebook, but it’s not the same, the sense of close interconnectedness is gone.
I hope this can be remedied soon, and I hope that Path succeeds. They have made something I consider to be truly wonderful. I just hope my friends can ever actually use it.
