I've been thinking through this problem for awhile, 7+ years.

Re: Funding - One I'd add to the list is to lobby government to provide $X annually per citizen that gets allocated to the user's choice to pay for their social network platform of choice; this would have to be tied to specific rules/guidelines. E.g. mandatory tax money that the person distributes how they want. Whether this will lead to the desired outcome, I'm unsure - people might still just want to give their money to Facebook or a platform who takes that money + still does less-than-good or less-than-desired behaviours, requiring regulation and oversight, costing taxpayers anyway. It might also incentivize private dollars to be more willing to invest in platforms if there's that money per-user that would be available.

Another I'd add or that's not explicitly stated is to create enough value that people - or enough people - are willing to pay; this ties into freemium model or subscription model.

I think the solution is, as you list, is a mix of different funding sources.

Investment should likewise not solely come from the VC model, it should come from a combination of sources:
- From government -- if you can't convince a government to invest, then why not?
- From philanthropic -- who will have a longer horizon than traditional VC, and who will hopefully require a higher burden on evidence that the leader(s) are good people.
- From traditional VC -- who can benefit by reducing risk from the other funding sources, and to leverage the experienced VC's network and resources.

Also, brand names.

Facebook is brandable, Diaspora - I'm still not sure I pronounce it properly. App.net was a good attempt, a little more brandable than Diaspora - at least with technologists, however not necessarily consumer-friendly; their mission and fight, similarly to how Evan from Snapchat pushed back against what was essentially Mark bullying (sell to me or we'll copy you); ~7 years ago I wrote a blog post after Fred Wilson suggested I turn a comment into its own post, related to The Independent Web - and the requirement that that will require sharing, which means not being greedy, and not trying to capture 100% of value; http://mattamyers.tumblr.com/post/2903098250/the-independent...

Another competitive advantage: differentiation. Copying Facebook doesn't give anything to people that they don't otherwise have.

Whenever I see discussion about people creating a competitor to Facebook, they miss out on these two staples - differentiation and branding.

I've been evolving my own ideas and plans, multiple platforms to create an ecosystem, however I've been struggling with chronic pain the last few years - and finding doctors locally to do continue the simple stem cell injections I was getting (and that 100% were healing the pain) has proven difficult due to incompetence in the system; I've come to realize that doctors are selected for their memorization skills (via tests), and not for critical thinking skills. The pain primarily disrupts my executive function and decision making, and so this has lead to me almost being paralyzed - but more unfortunately dependant on other people who haven't been competent or available enough to do the work of finding a willing doctor for me. What confuses people is I can reason and storytell still, not really any decision making required when simply stream of consciousness writing, otherwise I find myself stuck in routine I had before I was introduced to the pain in my body. I can ramble on forever, until mentally exhausted anyhow - and then I ground again slightly to feeling the pain more clearly. Actually I wrote about how I reconnected with the pain in an HN comment yesterday, if curious in a simplified version: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16894072

The brand name for one of two main platforms I have been evolving my plans for is ENGN, pronounced engine. There's a story of how I evolved to that name, my focus is fading now though, so won't share it now. Randomly writing long comments pretending people will care as a mechanism to give meaning and feel connected to people more than I currently can in real life; I can't really participate in emotional bonds/relationships with emotion as the added stress is another variable to manage with the pressure the pain puts on my system.

I honestly don't know if I will find a doctor to heal the pain within a timely manner - have already been at my wit's end, however I don't want my life's work to disappear, so I have it written to give my domain names, etc to Elon Musk - as he's the only most obvious holistic thinker that wears his heart on his sleeve, and does his best to think through things will affect everyone; the current condition and lack of organization for my plans would likely be describable as a clusterfuck, so the domains and logos may be the only thing really usable for him/the team he'd hopefully put to work if I'm not around to execute on it myself.

Clearly I got a second mental wind, though it's getting cooler outside now and the hunger signal is telling me/directing me to get food now. Thanks for reading, internet stranger, if you got this far.

If I had the focus/concentration and self-direction/executive function ability, I'd go through all of the social network plan repository and comment on it all from my perspective.