I'm Jan, a solo developer from the Czech Republic. Sociano exists because of a moment I kept having: I'd open Instagram to answer a message, and surface forty minutes later somewhere deep in Reels, with no memory of deciding to be there. The message, half the time, was still unanswered.
I tried the existing tools. The timers were easy to dismiss — when the "time's up" screen appeared, I tapped Ignore Limit without even reading it. The serious blockers went the other way: they cut me off from the platforms entirely, which meant cutting me off from the people on them. Friends, group chats, messages I actually needed. Neither option was a solution; one was too soft, the other punished the wrong thing.
The problem was never the people. It was the feed wrapped around them. So the idea behind Sociano became very simple: keep the people, lose the feed. Keep messages, search, posting, profiles — remove Reels, Shorts, Explore, and every loop engineered to make "just checking something" into an evening.
"You shouldn't have to choose between your friends and your attention."
Sociano is independent. There are no investors, no engagement targets, no one asking me to make the app stickier. It's funded by an optional subscription, which keeps the incentives pointed the right way: the app only does well if it keeps doing right by the people who use it — not by holding their attention hostage.
That's also why it's private by default. No ads, no data sale, no behavioral profile of you — a tool built to protect your attention can't be another thing quietly harvesting it. Your passwords stay with the platforms, where they belong.
It's still one person building this, which means two things: the rough edges are documented publicly instead of hidden, and when you email contact@sociano.app, it lands with me — the same person who'll fix the thing you found.
— Jan, maker of Sociano
