I want suggestions on my existing website, thinking to expand it to a text-only discussion platform

Note: you can look at the website: developers[.]knowivate[.]com which I currently use for my own blogging, reference, docs, public notes, support docs, etc. (btw, for the past few days the website is slightly slow and giving errors sometimes due to high traffic, I'm working on it)

I want suggestions on my existing website, thinking to expand it to a text-only discussion platform (I can't afford image storage as of now (I'm aware of what happened with Koo app))

I don't have any exact idea or plan about how it could be.

But I was thinking to make it a text-based user-generated content platform. Currently I'm thinking it will be more about discussions on topics like programming, general-purpose discussion, etc.

The website has already been up for more than 3 years (still not good, but it works)

One of my purposes is to keep it as an alternative platform to Reddit, X (but I know I'll not get tons of users). My aim is to at least make it technologically sustainable so whenever something happens with Reddit, X then at least it will be the go-to alternative. For now, I'm thinking to improve the website accordingly to make it a social-like engaging platform.

I want your suggestions on what functionalities it should have.

Should it have like, dislike, repost, comment, etc.?

As per my personal thinking, it should have like, dislike, comment.

I cannot add total views, images, videos directly (It'll cost me and I'll fail like Koo app). (We may allow video embedding from YT, etc.)

Also I want to add a "Community Note" feature on posts.

I know it may feel useless. But I want to make it. Since making software is easy but making it stable, scalable, robust, user-friendly takes either enough time or a lot of money (which I don't have)

I want to make it bootstrapped and sustainable. So some heavy-cost features may not exist initially.

Also if you want to become an early user/tester please let me know.

Also I don't like adding features that are heavily dependent on third parties, like adding transactions via third-party APIs. There are a lot of features I can easily add with plug-and-play but it's not my own, it's third-party so they can turn off my switch anytime which I want to avoid.

As of now I've had a working application for more than 3 years with the below:

• In-house Authentication/Authorization/Login/Signup
• Login logs/Clear logs
• Above website is still working and anyone can sign up and make users and posts (it's working)

Features missing

• Like/Dislike/Up/Down
• User-friendliness
• Comment
• Unlimited scroll-like personalization

What should be the USP?

Criticize my above points, please also provide ways.