> In real life, you get "circles" for free! Whoever you are with in the current moment is your circle, and only they have access to what you "share" during that time period.
And the whole reason Facebook et al are popular is that in real life it's really hard to get all the people you want in the right "circles" (i.e. places) at the right times.
Facebook doesn't have the circle feature. It's publish to everyone only.
You can send a group message, which I suppose can sort of function like a circle, especially if it's long lived. But it would hard to manage many of those.
Actually you can create a circle (might be called a list?) and publish just to that circle. People just mostly don't bother, because managing circles is so much effort.
correct ... unfortunately this feature has been super hidden over time in the FB UX. It's almost impossible to figure out unless you already know about it. I find it super useful when I specifically want to segment my audience. Don't do it with everyone that I'm 'friends' with, but for example, I have a 'kids' list for every underage person I'm friends with (my kids, nephews, nieces, etc), and I will exclude them from a post if it's non-kid appropriate. But as you mention, it's a pain to do this for everyone.
And the whole reason Facebook et al are popular is that in real life it's really hard to get all the people you want in the right "circles" (i.e. places) at the right times.