I've been thinking about this for a while. I kind of want to make a video-based social media, not unlike Youtube. Youtube's increasing shittiness reminded me I wanted to do this again. I especially don't like how Youtube's become less and less social. I miss the days of groups and Youtube Live
I want to take cues from SomethingAwful. The site would be free to browse, albeit with ads, but for a one-time fee, you can set up an account and have access to a lot more than just browsing.
The question is: Should I bother? Would any of you even try to use it, or do you think it'll die out with no one using it or even checking it out?
Feedback and ideas also welcome.

Y'know, it might help if I explain my business model further:
For website features, I'm pretty much just taking everything from YouTube as it was in 2010. This means groups, playlists, captions, Streams, etcetera. Heavy emphasis on the SOCIAL aspect of SOCIAL MEDIA. I'm also going to be introducing a better system for audio-only uploads, in case you're interested in that kind of thing, but it is not my main focus.

I have an idea that will probably get me into a shit ton of hot water. If you do not log in for 8 years, your account gets "archived." You will no longer be allowed to log in, and after a period of time, your username becomes eligible for registration again. However, if you gave me any avenue to contact you, you will be contacted yearly to be reminded your account exists and that logging in will reset this timer. (If you are paying for a subscription, this count down will be put on pause until you stop paying.)
Your comments, videos, etcetera will remain on the site, provided you do not request deletion. You'll be provided a special login post-archive to access it, so that you can delete whatever you do not want to keep online.

Additional monetization will probably be required to keep paying server bills. I don't want investor money, and I do not plan to make the ads obnoxious.
Pre-roll ads are a maybe, but there'd be only one allowed. I REFUSE to do any more than that. Beyond that, margin/takeover ads are also a maybe, but they will not be allowed to take over the interior content. I refuse to do anything like Bitview, where every page is liable to a full-screen popup, and frankly the margin ads are a stretch.

I think that in terms of functionality, it’s pretty weak for a paid social platform.
It would have to be a fully capable service where you can post videos, audio files, images, and text, without turning into a microblogging site...or at least without likes or retweets.
It should also only show your friends, not your followers.
Followers should stay private, because that’s important to avoid becoming like modern social media.

However if you only want to make a video platform, my only suggestion would be to allow users to post comments without an account, but keep those comments clearly separated from the others.

It’s also important to maintain compatibility with older operating systems, so I would choose a layout based on tables.
But you can use whatever you want (as long as it’s not bloated JavaScrapt like react).

Personally, I had imagined a social platform where, instead of having a profile, you have a personal board that you can moderate, and the "TL" is just a general board.
Basically, the idea was to make a better version of Twitter (at least for me), but in the end I don’t think it’s really a good idea.

Anyway, I’ll be there to try your site.
The real problem is finding users who are willing to sign up for your platform, especially if it’s a paid service.

Okay, I see what you're saying. However, doing all of that moves away from what I want to achieve. Damn... Especially the "allow users to post without an account" deal. Part of the point of the paid account system is to ensure that money's on the line if they break the rules. The other part is that a video sharing platform is the most expensive type of social media, so I'd need to cover server and moderation costs SOMEHOW.
Bitview is profitable from what I know. However, the ads are absolutely obnoxious, and I'd rather not subject anyone else to that. I guess I could make a subscription model where you get benefits such as no ads, but I also want to avoid subscriptions if I can help it. Besides, I'm not sure what else I could offer with such a subscription model.

Nnh, this is so difficult. Maybe I'll launch it as free and then figure out how to make it actually viable as a model.
(Your idea reminds me of both Proboards and the Wiki talk page model. I'd say go for it as an experiment, honestly.)

I understand, I would have said it was a good idea if alt tubes didn't already exist.
Because, seeing the current state of the internet, I don't know if many people would be willing to pay to use it.
It's already really hard to make an active, free site, so a paid one... I don't know...
Currently, most alternative sites that actually work, beyond the major platforms (Reddit, Twitter, etc.), are mainly revivals of existing ones.

And right now, the state of this part of the web is like this:
- Revival projects (vidlii, bitvid, spacehey, etc.)
- Personal Sites (Neocities/Nekoweb, etc.)
- Imageboards (the only type of board that is still alive today)
- Textboards (never been very prominent outside Japan)
- Forums (almost dead, but fortunately some still persist)
- Alternative search engines (wiby, marginalia, etc.), which I find quite bad for discovering new sites...

Some new platforms are also emerging that seem really active (pikidiary and zdiskuss, which I discovered recently).
This may indicate that we are finally reaching a point where people are looking for new, original sites rather than just revivals of existing ones!

Or maybe not, LOL.

Anyway, you have to consider the current state of the web if you want to make a website that works and is appealing.
Because above all, you're doing it to build a community and have fun!
That's why in this context I don't think many people would be interested in a paid video social media.
On the other hand, it's a very good idea to start with.

But you're right, the advertising model we have today is bad and really annoying.
And my suggestion to allow anyone to post comments is definitely a shitty idea.
Actually, I wanted to find a way to let people enjoy it enough to make them want to create a paid account.

However, I still think that allowing people to post images, audio, and flash files in addition to videos is a good idea
(text isn’t necessary, since it’s primarily a video platform that you want to make)

There needs to be enough variety in content for people to really appreciate it and want to contribute by making an account.

But I don’t think it’s viable to launch it like this.
It would be a good idea to start by making it available for free.
That's more or less what Something Awful did, and I think you should do the same.

For my site idea, I dropped it because I came up with a better one: a linkboard that combines a web directory with a search engine.
It’s nothing revolutionary, but I was frustrated with what currently exists.

I have an old version on my Heliohost site that I could update and share here if people are interested.
I've added at least ~500 links, so it's technically already usable.