"It occurs to me that all extant social media apps have, at a high level, exactly the same requirements: 1. Allow users to upload some data to cloud storage 2.

"It occurs to me that all extant social media apps have, at a high level, exactly the same requirements: 1. Allow users to upload some data to cloud storage 2. Make that data discoverable to certain other users 3. Show everyone ads" Identification should be on that list. Allow me to uniquely identify myself, and prevent others from attempting to impersonate me. "a. "ads" - No one actually wants them, so get rid of them" Nobody wants them, but you need to keep the lights on somehow, and people are even less inclined to pay for things. "i. Most people don't have a server on which to host it ii. Most people won't pay for it, so someone would have to write it and make it really easy to use, for free ...and by a lucky cooincidence, both of those objections have the same answer: Amazon. Most people don't have a server? Amazon will rent you one. Who would develop a self-hosted FB clone for free? Amazon, to get people to rent servers." So now you're trading Google for Amazon? That's no better. And you just said that people don't want to pay for things, but now you want people to pay Amazon for servers?"