The 24
Twenty-four people. Three times over, at most.
A cap is an unusual thing to advertise. It is also the only honest response to what a person can actually carry.
One panel holds twenty-four.
Not twenty-four favourites out of a longer list. Twenty-four total, laid out on a single screen with nothing below the fold. If a person is on your grid, you can reach them in one gesture. If they are not, they are not.
The number comes from the observation that people sustain far fewer active relationships than their contact list suggests. We are not the first to notice this. We may be the first to build the limit into the product rather than apologise for it.
Three panels
Seventy-two at the outer limit, and almost nobody needs all three.
Panels are separate lives, not folders. Each keeps its own grid, its own priority people, and its own idea of how quickly silence becomes distance.
- FamilySlowest to cool
- Forgiven a quiet month. These are the people who are still there after a season of silence, and the app should not nag you about them.
- Close friendsMiddle to cool
- The panel that rewards attention most. Friendships here are held up by contact rather than by obligation, and they fade fastest when nobody calls.
- Mentors and workFastest to cool
- Professional warmth cools quickly and formally. A month of nothing here is not a lull, it is a lapse, and the grid says so sooner.
The cost
Adding someone means deciding who leaves.
When a panel is full, there is no overflow and no archive tab. You choose. It is the one genuinely uncomfortable moment in the app, and we have resisted every suggestion to soften it.
Removing someone is quiet. They are not told, nothing is announced, and if you add them back the history is still there. The discomfort is meant for you, not for them.
