Show HN: Pieces – Social network for people
A productized private blog offering a dedicated web experience, iOS, and Android, positioned as an alternative to Instagram and Substack.
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AI Executive Synthesis
A productized private blog offering a dedicated web experience, iOS, and Android, positioned as an alternative to Instagram and Substack.
This entry targets the highly saturated social networking market. The stated motivation—moving off Instagram and Substack—indicates user dissatisfaction with existing platforms, suggesting a demand for more controlled or niche social environments. However, launching a general 'social network for people' faces immense network effect challenges. The transition from a private blog to a productized offering implies an attempt to scale a personal solution. Market viability hinges on a compelling differentiator beyond simply being an alternative, especially given the significant investment required for multi-platform development (web, iOS, Android) without clear initial traction or unique value proposition articulated.
Hey HN, long time lurker first time poster. I built a social network called PIECES. After building a private blog last year after I had to get off IG and Substack, I decided to productize it. It's here now. It has a dedicated web experience + iOS/Android.Would love if you tried it out!
Related Ecosystem & Alternatives
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Deep-Dive FAQs
What is Pieces – Social network for people?
Pieces – Social network for people is analyzed by our AI as: A productized private blog offering a dedicated web experience, iOS, and Android, positioned as an alternative to Instagram and Substack.. It focuses on This entry targets the highly saturated social networking market. The stated motivation—moving off Instagram and Substack—indicates user dissatisfa...
Where did Pieces – Social network for people originate?
Data for Pieces – Social network for people was aggregated directly from the Hacker News community ecosystem, representing raw developer and early-adopter sentiment.
When was Pieces – Social network for people publicly launched?
The initial public indexing or launch date for Pieces – Social network for people within our tracked developer communities was recorded on July 3, 2026.
How popular is Pieces – Social network for people?
Pieces – Social network for people has achieved measurable traction, logging over 33 traction score and facilitating 23 recorded discussions or engagements.
Which technical categories define Pieces – Social network for people?
Based on metadata extraction, Pieces – Social network for people is categorized under topics such as: private blog, productize, web experience, iOS.
How does the creator describe Pieces – Social network for people?
The original author or development team describes the product as follows: "Hey HN, long time lurker first time poster. I built a social network called PIECES. After building a private blog last year after I had to get off IG and Substack, I decided to productize it. It's ..."
Community Voice & Feedback
- i see a 100 social networks advertised daily on reddit, HN etc- the biggest challenge you are facing is overcoming the double network effect- in order for any of em to take off, you need to get me and my friends and their friends and so on- one way to do this is to start a social network only for a small niche. could be anything. startups only! designers only etc and scale it up one category at a time to let the network effects come into the picture- that is how you build a social media with 1M+ users
The software is really well-made.I wonder why you change the links from the internal ones to this format https://piecesof.me/p/5b2w8x6sn2mwkdhppfusvqsf8z5h1t ?The writing is quite nice. I don't understand the "Docs". And I'd suggest to make it very easy to write my first post. The big editor is a bit scary.also here: https://piecesof.me/videos - where do I get prompted to upload my own video?Anyway, good luck! Let's see how long I can stick around.
The more I see of social media, the more I'm convinced that it's not really a fulfilling way to share and socialize on the internet. I've come to believe that anything that can platform every voice on the planet forces noise to drown out signal.Since you've actually started a social media site, I wonder if you have any insight on that? You say you believe in this project; what is it that you think is valuable about letting everyone talk to everyone, as opposed to exclusive and curated spaces for people that semi-self-select based on community interests and values, like forums? Separately, why do you think that removing organizations/brands and psuedo users is going to be the crux of the solution?Honestly looking to have my mind changed. But mostly just curious.
Best of luck!
I like the idea at a social level/product level, but at this point I don't think I'd use any social network that wasn't open at a protocol level in some way. ATProto/etc would be a great tech backbone for this, and would then let users self host their content, it would let orgs run their own views, it would let archivers archive content for posterity, it would open the door to possible federation in ways that suited the network in the future. Re-inventing all of that from scratch would be a terrible idea, and would lose focus.
A “social contract” that one party changes at will and then just announces the changes is not a contract (or social) in any meaningful sense. It’s just terms and conditions with a different name.If you want people to see it as a different thing, it needs to be a different thing.
Do you have any plans to support Ultra HDR images, on the Android app and/or other platforms? I did some browsing of the site and didn't see any examples (but that doesn't mean it's unsupported).I really enjoy that aspect for sharing photography on Instagram, and the support (at the client level, at least) is fairly straightforward (see https://developer.android.com/media/grow/ultra-hdr/display).The idea of the platform does sound great, and the application seems very polished from what I can tell so far.
Is this site inclusive of nonhuman identities? [0]It seems incredibly focused on "real humans" etc, which is (common...), but my real identity doesn't exist in the physical world.(There are also multiple of them thanks to DID, but that tends to require a significant rearchitecture to accommodate)[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherkin
I’ve seen a few posts about a “better social network” tried a few even thought about making my own.It seems hard to get them off the ground.I wonder if the answer to the enshittification of social networks is “no social network at all”.
Do you have some sort of detection for 'faceless accounts' ? Or are you moderating that by hand?I like the idea, but how do you actually enforce the 'no bots' model?
Discovery Source
Hacker News Aggregated via automated community intelligence tracking.
Tech Stack Dependencies
No direct open-source NPM package mentions detected in the product documentation.
Media Tractions & Mentions
No mainstream media stories specifically mentioning this product name have been intercepted yet.
Deep Research & Science
No direct peer-reviewed scientific literature matched with this product's architecture.
SaaS Metrics