alt Hacker News10-20 years ago running a social network platform was viable for individuals. Today, in the era of information warfare, SEO, trolling and in general magnitudes more bad actors, it's almost impossible.
Friend has encountered things like people uploading illegal content and then reporting to hosting provider or various terrorist or political organisations publishing their manifestos and vile content then making death threats for taking it down and so on.
Also no ads, means how the platform is going to survive once provider runs out of money or figures out it is not as easy as it looks like?
Good points! paperboat.website is very simple and focuses on friends sharing their blog posts which each other, which helps limit regular users' exposure to potential malicious activity.
I expect it's going to be tricky if the user base grows but I'm not planning to compete with larger social networks. It's primarily a space to create personal sites and blogs and my plan is to keep it around as long as possible. If users decide to purchase memberships, I'll have even more time to make sure it stays secure and up to date. If not, I'll still run this for me and my friends which is a huge motivation for me already.