I’d say some of the downsides on the modern internet become much starker when your kids come up against them. As adults growing up through the birth of the internet we are kinda inoculated to it.

I suspect the lack of privacy is because the target audience is “kids” not “teens”. When my kids first discovered group chat in iMessage with their cousins it was fun for literally 30 minutes before it was tears and abuse - which was a really instructive lesson for me.

At that (primary school) age parents would almost universally know the parents of your kid’s out-of-school playmates - if only because someone tends to have duty of care at any time and who is where with whom needs to be figured out.

The feature set seems sound and frankly welcome and overdue to me!

Yeah it is true. I am more or less modelling the interactions my kid has with other kids and the social relationships I have with her friends parents. She doesn't go to anyone's house who's parents I don't know. Obviously that will change as she gets older.

So for now, the social dynamic in the app is for parents to connect first. Once connected, their kids can choose to connect (facebook messenger kids uses this same process I think).

When I talk to less tech-savvy parents in my community, I think many feel quite helpless and unsure how to navigate a lot of this. Consuming youtube kids videos on an iPad is one option, or outlawing screentime entirely is another. Kids want real stuff that they are in control of. I want to build age appropriate versions of this kind of stuff... with the appropriate guards and oversight in place, keeping parents in the drivers seat.

Most teens are kids.