From a peak of 50 million users, a $500 million valuation and a $100 million offer from Google just months into live service, Path is finally shutting down. What a ride though. path.com/about
At the time of Path's launch, Facebook was already valued at around $4-5 billion, had just turned cash flow positive - but there were growing murmurs about privacy around features such as the Like button.
Path's proposition was privacy and a return to more "traditional" social values - instead of friending everyone under the sun encouraging people to "facebook me" on Path you could only have a maximum of 50 friends
In 2010 the notion that one could reach "social media fatigue" was probably a uniquely Silicon Valley first world problem though. While some people in SV saw the point of Path, the rest of the planet was having great fun adding 18,000 friends to their Facebook.
Cynically, I think there's limited success to be had in the startup world trying to productise morality. You're much better off trying to massively enable people's innate bad habits.
