While Meta spends billions perfecting algorithms to keep users scrolling, Cajetan Baptista spent five and a half months building something fundamentally different: a social network that isn’t trying to monetize your attention.
Baptista, a product design leader with over two decades of experience, launched theLove as a complete counter-proposal to ad-driven social media. The subscription-based private social network went live across web, iOS, and Android with a simple premise: no ads, no algorithmic feeds, no data sales, no AI-generated accounts, and moderation designed to actually protect users rather than maximize engagement.
What Baptista built solo — using AI-assisted development and the full force of his design and product expertise — would typically require a team of developers, designers, and product managers working for 18 to 24 months at a cost between $2 and $3 million. He shipped a full-featured platform including social feeds with privacy controls, groups, events, photo galleries, and a complete moderation system on his own timeline, on his own terms.
A Different Business Model
Users pay $5 monthly or $50 annually on web and Android, with slightly higher pricing on iOS to account for Apple’s platform fees. That’s the entire revenue model. No venture capital. No growth-at-all-costs mentality. No pivot to advertising just this once.
Early conversion rates suggest there’s real demand for this approach. Without significant marketing spend, initial users converted to paid subscriptions at a remarkable rate, driven entirely by word of mouth. When a product genuinely respects its users, they notice — and they tell people.
What This Signals About Social Media’s Future
The broader implication isn’t that anyone can build a social network on a shoestring. It’s that experienced product leaders with deep design and user judgment can now bring ideas to life that previously required entire organizations. AI-assisted development tools have changed the calculus — not by replacing expertise, but by amplifying it.
This shift could enable a new generation of focused, values-driven social platforms that serve specific communities rather than attempting to capture everyone’s attention. theLove targets adults exhausted by algorithmic feeds and surveillance capitalism — people who want a trusted space for actual friends and family rather than an infinite scroll of acquaintances and ads.
Over the next one to three years, Baptista plans to grow the platform through organic word of mouth and a referral system that puts existing members in control of who joins their network. The focus remains on building what he describes as the trusted home for close relationships online.
Whether private social networks for close connections represent the future of online community or a meaningful alternative to dominant platforms remains to be seen. What’s clear is that one designer with a vision and the skills to execute it built something real, something live, and something people are already paying for. That’s not a story about cost. That’s a story about what’s possible.
