Jimmy Wales, the wikipedia innovator, is trying to create an alternative to Facebook and Twitter. It is early days, but WT:social is up and running. Wales has been a critic and has tried before to create a better news source. That previous effort, WikiTribune, was eventually unable to attract the paid users necessary to sustain their paid journalists. If you try to join WT:Social, after registering, you will encounter what looks like the remains of WikiTribune.
I am guessing Wales believes this is the time to offer an alternative to Facebook and Twitter. The funding models that sustain these services have received a lot of negative press. There have been other efforts to generate alternatives to Facebook and Twitter (Diaspora and Mastodon) and I still make an effort to contribute to both. However, with the huge number of users already involved with Facebook and Twitter alternatives struggle. As an individual, you can move and start over, but the networks each of us have built seldom moves with us. The “network effect” for early successes is very difficult to challenge.
Wales is attempting to bootstrap this effort. He has created a small team and while taking registrations from anyone, immediate participation is guaranteed only to those who contribute. There were more than 21,000 ahead of me on the waitlist and the subscription costs were $10 a month or $100 a year. I subscribe to multiple services, but this seems a little high. As an alternative, I suppose the time users spend on Facebook and Twitter would make this seem a reasonable amount and might even be a way to understand the value of your information to Facebook and Twitter. I did make small contributions to Diaspora and Mastodon, but these were one-time contributions. I understand that these services face a chicken and egg problem, but you have to be a true believer to commit at this time.