Four of five years ago I had exactly the same idea! It's as if you have somehow read it from my brain! Now here's the thing: I even started working on it but th

Four of five years ago I had exactly the same idea! It's as if you have somehow read it from my brain! Now here's the thing: I even started working on it but then I started thinking about how many customers I might find and then I stopped working on it. Here's what made me stop: First, the self hosting. Self hosting is hard. It's impossible for the average user. First, you need to buy and register your domain (and don't forget to renew it every year or two). Then you need to add the DNS record (what's a DNS record?). If you want to host it in your home you need a static IP. How many people know what a static IP is? If you do not have it you need to purchase an online server. Cheapest linode or digitalocean is 5$ a month. Then the installation. You might make a few scripts but how many people will be able to run it? And then, if you finally have your website active you need to take care of backups, too - because mistakes happen. So, to summarize, self hosting is just for technical people, there is no way for Average Joe to do it. And the there is the hosted solution. It costs 5$/month but what do you get for that money? Yes, you can host your family pictures but you do not get any of the other features that Facebook gives you - the gossips, the ads (some people want to search for things to buy), the latest conspiracy theories, the political flame wars, your grandparents' ramblings... and all that for free! So, you get just the very basic features, and you will still need to visit Facebook if you want to check your grandparents photos and some of them will not even want to visit your webpage ("why can't you just put photos on Facebook where I can see them? And why do I need an account to see your pictures?"). So, other than some very privacy-oriented people I did not see very many people using it. Now having said that, I am extremely happy that someone made this! I really hope that I was wrong and that you will find lots and lots of customers. I will follow your project, I might even become a customer (I stopped using Facebook a few years ago and I share pictures with my family using telegram group but it is not exactly the best solution). I wish you best of luck with this project.