I'm so sick of trying to explain to morons that putting their entire lives - their social connections, their thoughts, where they are, what they are doing now - documented with photos no less - on Faecesbook is maybe not such a great idea.
No one I know does what they describe. They post random things that they want to post. If Facebook was some kind of platform where you could see everything the person does streamed directly from his/her eyes, every though he has and so on, you might have a point. But everyone is posting only what they want, which usually means their interests. And in my circle, not that often either.
If you think they are morons and you are trying to "explain" something to them, well gee. It's a problem, but the problem is with your attitude and looking down on other people.
Just who is actually in danger and need protection?
US companies, of course. Frankly, people who travel overseas will buy them at will, fully knowing they are cheap replicas. And usually they also get a good product, only without the huge profit margin to company that made it.
Facebook will eventually be replaced (or be made relatively irrelevant) by an open solution
Like Diaspora?
One of the Facebook's power is that it is a somewhat closed platform. The UI is standardized, there is not shit like with MySpace pages. The privacy things are global. Everything works the same way, it always works good and fast and most importantly, everyone is there.
I don't see what an open source platform would provide better. And I mean actual things for users, not some technical stuff or features that only geeks care about.
Neutrinos have bad breadth.