I've thought about one from a conceptual standpoint. In finance, many buy-side firms are collecting the same alternative data. This might be anything from consumer reviews to executive flight traffic data. So, could the buyside band together to create "Bloomberg"?
More buyside firms now have data science teams, and with the explosion of alternative data, you could make the argument that the DIY is too taxing for one firm and the vendor is too slow at incorporating new datasets, and merely is the middleman. I don't think a hedge fund would give away its secret sauce, but much of this data eventually becomes table stakes.
I've thought about whether a token could be created to provide an incentive for firms to build and share datasets. Tokens could be rewarded if a large number of other firms use/read from a particular dataset, or another firm could fork a dataset to clean dirty data and potentially tokens would flow to multiple firms in this instance. More firms using the network should lead to more data and a more valuable network/token.