alt Hacker NewsFacebook didn't have the feed initially either (and it was really disliked when it was introduced - people thought it was like stalking). But yes to your second point. Real people who you actually wanted to know and had actually met were on Facebook. That wasn't really true of any of the other sites.
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smelendez • yesterday at 10:38 PM
Yeah, Facebook was primarily a directory when it started, a cross between a college facebook (like a yearbook given at the start of the year instead of the end) and a phone book.
Also, it didn’t allow custom styles or html, which was unusual at the time but ultimately helped it take off to the point that, like Google, it didn’t have allow HTML or JS in ads either.
Little did we know back then how many people were yearning to have stalkers. "This person wants to be notified every time I put something online" sounded incredibly creepy in the mid-aughts!