Ask HN: Would you really pay for a social network?

I would pay for a social network that can offer a simple UI, that works on any device (have you tried to use Instagram on an iPad Pro), and that can help me switch between private, anonymous, and public posts intermittently.

IMO the reason social took off is that everyone bought into the idea. That means you want people from all walks of life be a part of it and possibly fund it via the folks who are willing to pay for it: Take strava for example.

The equivalent for regular social sites would be in my mind a service that blocks tracking/user data collection ads etc. - essentially everything people are worried about for a price. If you don't pay the price, you get the 'basic' model where they make money off you by other means.

If it were truly ad-free, maybe. But there's nothing to stop them from starting a subscription-based service and then slowly introducing advertising to squeeze more revenue out of the platform, once everyone is invested in it. It would need to be a self-governed, non-profit cooperative. Or a government service.

I would pay to host a server (in my basement or in the cloud) on which to run a node in a decentralized social network. I might pay a one-time fee to join such a network. I would not pay a monthly fee for it, or for any social network.

I guess it depends on what is considered a "social network". I canceled my facebook a couple years ago and don't have twitter or instagram or anything else like that. I do however belong to some forums (vbulletin type sites) and pay for some extra perks on them. Like being able to post in the classifieds, etc... I notice that since getting off of facebook I started going back to forums that had specific topics. I find that the discussions on there are much friendly an about a specific topic.