

I love the idea of friendica but until my mother can upload a video and view it on a feed it’s just not going to work. I’ve tried it out many times over the years and I just can’t recommend it as a Facebook replacement for nontechnical users, not even just for sharing with family.
In regards to storage costs, I’m happy to self host a good solution. But right now there are none.
Your idea about streaming from phones is pretty nice but as someone who uses lots of background data, it can suck up your battery. A good idea though and I don’t think that stops it being feasible.
There was a project called Circles that used a Matrix server to host private rooms you could invite people to where it was more like a feed, with photo galleries and videos and things. It got funding pulled but as far as I could tell it didn’t really have a future because they hit the limits of the technology stack, but it was a cool idea that was simple enough that you’d be able to get non-tech users onboard. Project is basically dead now though.