Nate worries about not noticing the absence of a “first-rate friend” because large social networks bury us in “third-tier friends”, and wonders if the answer simply is smaller social media (although I do wonder if any platform has toyed with algorithms which prompt you to see what’s up with someone who hasn’t posted in awhile).
This effectively is the premise behind Darius Kazemi’s how-to on, yes, running a small social network for your friends using Mastodon, especially if you use a fork which includes instance-only posts, allowing a true internal community to form.
It’s also something of the feel you get browsing the hand-curated discovery feed on Micro.blog. It’s definitely something a number of IndieWeb developers seem to be thinking about, anyway.