Doubtful this will ever be a thing. Without followers you turn into either group chat or forum.

Forums work (see Reddit). It’s content dependent and conversation focused on content over followers.

Group chat works but has to be limited to a small circle, otherwise it becomes unmanageable.

Since he is talking about friends - this is group chat and already exists but doesn’t fill the need of discovery. Friends simply don’t share enough content and many don’t have friends.

With forums and communities you get something like Reddit but it has nothing to do with friends. Friendships are hard to form and maintain.

Calm design kills repeat usage and your app is basically dead.