PCSpectra (Alex), you assumed incorrectly. I am very familiar with Drupal and have used it extensively for the last 5 years, that is why I am considering using something else. Drupal is not known for scaling well when you have a lot of authenticated users. Do some research and try to find a high volume social networking website that is based on Drupal. I have been looking for examples for weeks. That is why I posted the question in the first place.
The major one social networking example listed over on Drupal.org is teamsugar.com. They did a case study and they had to hack Drupal to death because of performance and scalability issues. Teamsugar states that in some areas, that their site does not even act like Drupal anymore after their changes. They also say that their non social networking sites are fine (they have magazine type websites also that use Drupal), but they had to do extensive customization to get Drupal to perform as a social network. That is the main large example of a large social network on Drupal, and it is hacked to death. What is the point of hacking something to death because of its design limitations? The amount of time hacking Drupal could have been used creating something more efficient from the ground up. With Drupal, I feel like I would have to recreate the wheel anyway while having to deal with all the mud that is stuck to it.
Anything ‘can’ scale if you throw a bunch of money at it, but it does not make it the best solution, or the most efficient solution.
I looked on drupalsites.net, and drupalsn.com to find any very high traffic sites using Drupal, did not find any examples that led me to believe that Drupal is the best solution. All those people reviewing code for Drupal are doing so and evaluating it as a content management system, not as a high traffic social network. If they did, it would be designed differently. Drupal is designed to fit a number of use cases, not just one.
Drupal is designed to do a lot of things, but I don’t think this is one of their strong point for a high traffic multiple logged in user site. Drupal has its place. After doing much research, and looking at the responses here, I don’t think this is a good situation to use Drupal at all. Drupal is not the end all be all solution for every situation. If I thought Drupal could do what I need, I would be a happy camper. It would mean faster to market, and easier to get up and running, but my research is not coming out with Drupal being the best long-term solution.
Can you name one very high traffic social network that is based on Drupal? I am not talking about sites where most of the pages are for anonymous users. I am talking about sites with numerous logged in users. I have looked extensively for weeks, and cannot find any cases of it, except for teamsugar. I have found some nice looking Drupal social networks, but I have not found very high traffic sites, and the one that is, is not really even Drupal anymore because of all the rewrites.