Clubhouse Is More Exclusive Than Ever: No One's On It – Gawker

They will take any member who would have them as a clubhouseSOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty ImagesClubhouse — the ex-invite-only pandemic app made up of audio-only “rooms” that V.C. investor Marc Andreessen once called “the Athenian agora come to life,” but which is more or less a glorified conference call — has been struggling to get people to show up to the club. Insider reports that since June, daily downloads of the app have dropped by 90 percent. Since February, the number of daily average users has fallen by 80 percent. As one venture capitalist told Insider: “To be honest, no one really talks about it anymore.”During the app’s initial release, Clubhouse attracted some Quibi-sized buzz. It was valued at $100 million at it’s launch in March 2020. Investments from venture capital poured in. Andreessen himself, seeing the app’s obvious similarities to the foothold of Greecian democracy, invested several million through his firm. By the beginning of 2021, some 10 million people had Clubhouse on their phones. When Twitter considered acquiring it in April, per Bloomberg, the app was valued at some $4 billion. Instead, Twitter launched their own version — Spaces — which, if its persistent notifications are any indicator, some people…
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