This is actually exciting and I'm thrilled to see JJJ the one doing it. If anyone can make this work he can. As one of the powerbuilders of BP, he's intimately aware of what it can and can't do - this is a natural progression. With all the talk about WordPress-as-platform - this is proof in the pudding, so to speak. No one actually said it, but this is WP/BP as Saas. This is a use that doesn't happen much (think HappyTables), and is usually only undertaken at great risk. The brand of Flox is not WP, it is Flox. This is JJJ continuing to be a standard bearer for the community.

Praise aside, this has been attempted before (to a degree) and on the operational side of things, it would be important to do some case studies (and I'll be happy to help out with this). Diaspora did the same thing (https://joindiaspora.com/), just different technology and methods. The concept is private social networks, though its implementation probably has more in common with BP deployments than it does with Flox (which is a full service, not a deployable software) There is also comparisons to be made that this is a consumer-grade version of Yammer (private social networks for business). The comparison to Slack is solid, however, though Slack is organization-oriented, I like the idea of a consumer/social-oriented private network.

There is more to this than JJJ using BP, and the project itself is a profound continuing statement on the use of WP. I'm thrilled that Jake Goldman & Co. are incubating this, it shows progressive thinking about WP/BP as a service platform and represents the kind of thinking that 10up competitor had when they supported Happy Tables. This kind of innovative thinking is the kind that really makes working in the WordPress space exciting.