Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales launched a new social network that aims to become what Facebook and Twitter.The new social network is called WT:Social, and Wales reports that as of November 6th it had 25.000 members.
Today it must have about 80.000 members, who seem excited about the idea of a social network that fakes fake news.
Ο website δεν χρησιμοποιεί το μοντέλο του Facebook που χρηματοδοτείται από advertisements, but has adopted a subscription model like that used by Netflix and Spotify.
It will cost 12,99 dollars a month or 100 dollars a year in the US, or 12 € a month or 90 € a year in Europe. However, there are still plenty of questions about the content of WT: Social. For example: Will the subscription be worth the fee?
The social network is a reboot of WikiTribune, which started in 2017 as a news sharing service, but didn't take off and Wales ended up firing several journalists it had hired. WikiTribune was started by a campaign through crowdfunding.
Wales spoke to the Financial Times about the new project and how fragile the proposal for the new site is. But according to Wales:
The business model of social media companies is problematic. It turns out that the huge winner is the low quality content.
Wales hopes WT:Social can attract 50 million or even half a billion users giving as an example its success Netflix and Spotify to attract people who are willing to pay for "meaningful" content.
Registration is free, but WT: Social has a waiting list. Of course those who pay can bypass it. So far, only 200 people have paid to bypass the waiting list.
Wales does not expect the new social network to be profitable, but believes it can be viable with minimal staff.
Why
Instead of the news model used by WikiTribune, WT: Social aims to become a self-sustaining community consisting of many small, specialized topics.
Instead of using coordinators to control them fake news like Facebook, Wales' social network will be based on users themselves, who will be able to edit and delete posts they deem incomplete or unreliable.