Incredibly reductionist argument. Success is impossible to define therefore all social networks are failures?
There are clearly properties of a social network that users would like to see: ease of use, reach, quality of content and moderation while also allowing for openness and free speech. Working toward a future where something like this exists at scale is worthwhile and a workable-enough definition of success.
That's not what the article is saying at all. The author is saying that any social network can be a success as long as it meets whatever metrics they care about.
A tiny private forum that only serves two people is successful if those two people only care about talking with each other.
Zuck will consider Threads a success if it gets to 1 billion users; that's still "only" an eighth of the world population, but that doesn't matter because the people running it get to define what success means to them.
There are clearly properties of a social network that users would like to see: ease of use, reach, quality of content and moderation while also allowing for openness and free speech. Working toward a future where something like this exists at scale is worthwhile and a workable-enough definition of success.