> I'm planning to launch a privacy-first social network in 2025, inspired by platforms like Instagram
Brain dumping my thoughts in this space (actively working in it), sorry if it is disorganized.
I would start by deconstructing your problem statement more and focusing on _why_ you want to build this; be very explicit and precise about your thesis. After getting a clear and conscise articulation of your why, your thesis, go talk to people about it. Randos at the bar, the gym, your church, school. Your social network, if successful, will be used by these people. Find places to kick up conversations with strangers. Ask them what they do. Eventually they'll ask you what you do in return. Use that as an opportunity to pitch your "why" and see if they get excited.
If random people aren't getting excited, your why isn't compelling.
If you are wanting to imitate Instagram, you are building a _social media_ application not a _social networking_ application. Social networks are focused on community building (creating social connections). Social media is a variable rate reward machine (casino) that hypes up randos on the internet in an attempt to make them famous in front of other randos on the internet. Social media algorithms optimize for things like "engagement" and "view time" - is this compatible with your current thesis? If not, what changes do you need to make to the Instagram experience to make it compatible? If it is privacy first, how will you feed your algorithm?
You also need to solve the game theory of the platform. Its more than just revenue, though getting people to pay you for this is a big part. The game theory includes moderation, lawfare, personal morals, etc. How are you approaching _sharing and storing content_? Are you going to slot a server into a server rack? You'll have to pay for that of course. But you'll also have nation states and other power seeking actors knocking on your door about your thesis and asking for control/influence over that server- what are you going to tell them? How are you going to align incentives so that your thesis doesn't fail under the pressure from U.S. clandestine operations? Will you be compelled by law at some point to abandon your thesis? Will you be compelled by your own morals to abandon it? How will you handle that?
When it comes to infrastructure costs, the more you personally host the more revenue you'll need to keep the thing afloat. It doesn't matter if you are a non-profit, a public benefit non-profit, a for-profit entity... someone will have to give you money to pay for storing and serving all that content.
The more you can rely on the infrastructure provided by your users (their internet, their compute, their storage) - the cheaper it will be to run. The more you rely on your users infrastructure, the fewer centralized points of control their will be for power seeking actors to try to capture.
This is getting rambley, sorry. I've spoken on this before (in the context of building peer-to-peer social networking experiences) if interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeZgCy3ub6M