There is a remarkable disconnect between the critics and the users here. Note that no users were cited in the article.

I understand not liking Facebook’s motives, that’s fine. Perhaps we can defer to the preferences of users here, who can choose to accept those motives or not, and to decide if the trade-off is an acceptable one. If we believe that they are unqualified to make this choice, one should explain that position.

Instead, the critics are imposing their preference on the users here, who are poor and (in this article) unheard. Can we please see an article where such people are quoted, and perhaps some numbers about usage, revealing their empirical preferences?