What families lose at a distance
If you see your family regularly, you know what's going on in their lives. You get to casually hear that your uncle's renovation is ballooning, and that your parents are planning a trip. Things come up naturally, without anyone making an effort to "update you."
Once you live apart, even in the same city, it's tougher. You still hear about the big news, but the small updates get harder to share, because each one takes a decision to pass along. Over time you know less about the people you love. The ordinary stuff has nowhere to go.
Most of it is too small to text, since a text interrupts someone and your uncle's renovation update doesn't need to. Social media has a different cost, which is performing. Posts there are written for a wide audience, so what you see of your cousins is the social media version, and what you see of your aunts and uncles is their LinkedIn version. A group chat would be closer, but getting the whole extended family into one is a leap, and one big chat isn't the best format for photos and updates people look at when they have time.
A Pool for your extended family changes this. You can let everyone post, and everyone looks when they feel like it. None of it needs a reply, and it’s all stuff the family cares about. You can also set up several Pools. Maybe your uncle shares the renovation updates in a Pool with his friends too. If you’re in it and you don’t know them, you won’t see each other as members.
We think people are more themselves in a space like this because of the audience. It's the people you invited, and there's nobody else to perform for. Reactions are visible only to your own connections. You see how your family and friends reacted, and nobody else's, so there's no public tally to chase.
It also doesn't have to be pictures of your life. Say one of your cousins keeps a Pool of podcasts and articles on something he's into. That might be his way of sharing, and it tells you something about him that photos of his week wouldn't.
We understand the difficulty of getting people to try a new app. It's tougher than just adding them to a chat. We made it so joining Pools is free, so the first step is small. Invite one person, like your partner, a sibling, or a parent. Put some stuff in there, and then invite the rest. If sharing grows to a point where someone needs more storage, there's even a way for people to cover others' storage on their plans, so it's easier to bring people along.
So your uncle posts the latest on the renovation, and you find out how it's going the way you would have at dinner. The next time you see each other, you already know where it stands, and you have more to talk about.