@pzmyers The problem isn't the lack of Facebook alternatives, the problem is the innumerable fragmented Facebook alternatives. Among other things. But the fragmentation problem is critical.

GNUSocial/OStatus were more or less dormant until Mastodon provided a good UI, and so far that's only drawn in enough traffic for punditry to compare it unfavorably to Twitter. The Facebook alternative will have an even larger hurdle to cross because of FB's scale and breadth.