Don't let the fact that the ever blood-hungry, ambulance-chasing media moved on to newer stories fool you.
Snowden himself might be forgotten (if he's lucky) but until now there weren't visible economical effects of the state/world-wide blanket surveillance, such things need time to take in and respond to. When decision makers start to come up with real solutions (not just hot air in front of the cameras) and when non-American companies will come up with viable alternative services, the big-data USA-based companies are going to loose a lot of business.
When that happens there will be changes.

There isn't any copy-right protection (aside from constant network connection) that hasn't been worked around already. Why would people 25 years from now have difficulties with today's protection?

Cars are getting smarter. People are not.

It is very much true for any kind of technical innovation, not only weapons.
An entrepreneur, who thinks of a new idea and rushes to set up a startup company, doesn't stop to think on the full implications of uses for his future product.
In most cases, I would think, engineers are very much not the kind of people who philosophize on the merits and dangers of technology... They're much to busy solving technical problems.

It all depends on your breadth and length of view.
Over the past months and the near future, Snowden is definitely causing USA damage.
In the long run though, he just might help to make the world a better place... and at a huge personal sacrifice no less. In my book that's the definition of a hero!

... Proper disclosure: I'm not an American.

It's a sad day indeed when you're judged by you're social skills when applying to a tech job.
I know, companies love their own creation and think it's the most awesome tool and anyone who is worth anything at all must be using it already or he/she were worthless in the first place. Anyone who doesn't think like they do simply hasn't seen the light yet or is beneath their notice.
When I want to get in touch with friends I pick up the phone and/or go out with them for a beer.

Fuck all this networking shit.

Fluff, fantasies and hot air, that's how I see these kind of evaluations.
How do you "evaluate" a brand's worth? can I approach Apple with 98.4 billion dollars and buy all rights to their Brand? Do these values mean anything?
I mean besides allowing market specialists to clock more work hours and another opportunity for CEOs and shareholders to congratulate themselves.

Wait and see.
Wait until non-american companies exploit the current distrust and offer alternate services to american internet companies and the for the big boys too start loosing money... You'll see some changes then.

It might be only hot air on part of Brazil, but you can be sure that most governments of Europe and Scandinavia has similar feelings about it even if they aren't vocalizing it quite the same way.
Every major government right now is doing some serious inspections of where is their data flowing through, where is it stored and how trusty are the interests of those who control them... And you can bet they are not liking the answers they are getting.

You do know that Wikis do not update themselves... right?

This is good business for Google.
If matters stay as they are now, users will leaving by droves when a non-american alternative present itself (and it will appear. people will not miss this opportunity). Rather than trying to defend it's data, Google must win back users trust or it wont stay in business for long.
The same can be said for most big american software and internet companies.

This is where US starts to loose it's dominance of the major power controlling the internet.
The big American software and internet companies will never enjoy the same confidence as before. A few years from now we'll start to see non-american alternatives to Google, Facebook, Microsoft and their likes, and re-routing of major international data hardlines and junctions.
100 years from now people will be wearing Swonden masks instead of Guy Fawkes

Spoken like a tech at heart... Guess what the non tech-savvy majority don't care about hardware innovation unless in goes Bling and catches the eye -- Apple proved that. Nokia's problem was that it didn't have any good choices, switching to Android would have placed Nokia in a very crowded spot of yet another Android phone manufacturer. If Nokia whats to grab a real market share the only way is to radically stand out from everyone else.

Stable and dependable communication really helps establishing law and order.

Really? For most of us 99.9999% of those 7 billion are out of reach, then remove of the remaining 0.00001% those of unwanted age, sex, language, looks and you're left with a surprisingly small minority. if you find ONE your in luck.