There are millions of websites that actually make money running on open source software. I don't see why this shouldn't work with social networking software - at least in principle. Some server owners might decide to monetize their service using ads, others might feel generous and pay for it out of their pockets. Pretty much the same as with other websites.

I understand that many people here are critical towards cloud computing. But the majority of people who use computers are not like the people on /. .

Most people do not know how to make their machines secure. Most people do not know how to encrypt their hard drives. Most people do not know how to protect against viruses or trojans. Most people even do not have backups.

I agree that for us geeks, the kind of security measures that we apply to our machines make our data safer than they would be in the cloud. However, I doubt that this is true for the majority of people who use computers.

I believe that cloud computing is more secure for most people. Of course it is right to improve the technology, make it better and even more secure. But it is wrong to assume that data is secure just because it is stored locally.

Buy more movies from iTunes and other legal streaming services!

Seriously, nothing big is going to happen here without more people creating demand for such a service.

BTW, the situation is even more annoying here in Germany: iTunes Movies just started about a week ago, and they currently only offer about 500 movies. There are a few competitors, but their range of movies does not look much better.

I have read numerous comments saying that people just do not want a lot of the features that most current phones have. I don't know how it was in the US, but at least in Germany cell phones were seen as expensive show-off toys by most people 10 years ago. Today, almost everybody has a cell phone here. I think this shows that it's not just about what people want. It does make sense to offer more than just what people expect.