Recently, I realized that using Google Places API can cost an arm and a leg to small businesses.

I'm interested in building an open and free alternative to services like Yelp or Google Places. I'm aware some scraping APIs exist, but I want to avoid that route and instead build something truly open and legal.

Before diving into this, I know technically, and logistically it can a become a big problem very quickly, and I would like to turn to HN for advice on a clear solution

1. The cost of data storage, especially if I'm saving images and highly compressed videos in formats like AV1 or VP9, might still be quite high. I'm thinking, the ballpark would be anywhere between 1 MB - 100 MB for a single business. 2. Setting aside data storage, if I provide an API, then egress could also become prohibitively expensive as well. 3. Assuming I somehow found good solutions for 1 & 2, the next challenge is designing a data cleaning workflow to combat spam in reviews. Similarly, how do I ensure that business owners do not engage in malpractices, such as trying to delete negative reviews?

In order to make this project more sustainable, would it make more sense to provide a dataset for free but an API at a price?

The aim is to provide more affordable options for small businesses with "limited use" compared to what Google Places currently offers. (I know, ironically I went from "truly open" in opening statement to "charging" by closing)