My 2 cents' worth: You need to make it free for real for the first x people who sign up, not "Free, Read-Only". LOL.
And you need a strategy. You need to target one specific group to start with, otherwise it will never take off.
Clearly, that can run 50K users and TB of storage easily on few $50 dedicated servers, I don't understand why talking about payment at all at this stage, maybe OP is run this "in the cloud" with absurd costs?
Hey I'm sorry for the confusion. This isn't my project, that's why I didn't use a Show HN or anything. I'm not in a position to make changes.
Can you make a standalone version that doesn't use the internet and instead hallucinates on the fly? Please ensure notifications are in RED so I don't miss them.
What is the factor that would make a “better” social network grow and succeed?