A few quick things:
1. I don't believe federated platforms will ever become mainstream. They have a whole host of problems, not the least of which is that they're too complicated for most people to use. This platform is not, therefore, federated.
2. I don't know what the best way of monetizing a thing like this is. I see only two options: the Wikipedia model of running on donations, or being advertising supported (along with a paid ad-free tier). The Wikipedia model works quite well for small-scale and bandwidth light projects, but I don't think a large social media platform can ever be funded that way.
3. Whichever option of monetization I take (if this takes off, that is) what I can say with certainty is that this will not go down the path of previous platforms. I don't believe the SV grow-fast model has worked very well for the end users. I have no interest in chasing growth for its own sake, or in chasing valuations, or in capturing as much attention from the users as possible. On this platform, therefore, there never will be any dark UI patterns. Avoiding enshittification is a primary goal of mine.
4. My vision for this platform, and for social media in general, is about giving users agency; the freedom to choose their social experience to their liking. What this would mean in practice are things like: ability to customize the UI; ability to filter content as one wants; ability to tweak recommendation algorithms; ability to turn on and off things like infinite scroll and suggested posts; and so on. I hate how all the current platforms want to tightly control my experience for me.
I go into all this in a bit more detail in my introductory blog post: https://discuit.substack.com/p/introducing-discuit
I know many HN users hate the New Reddit layout, which is what I've based this site on, but don't be bothered by it too much, I will be adding a much more compact layout sometime later.
