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Comment by TallGuyShort | Hacker News Reader

I really don't see his point. He says Facebook is too big to fail, and compares it to AOL. Yeah, AOL is still around, but it is no longer seen as a controlling force in the ISP industry. The goal of Diaspora has never been to wipe Facebook off the face (no pun intended) of the Earth - but to stop it from being such a controlling factor in social media. If Diaspora causes Facebook to become as popular as AIM is now (which, for the record - I don't think will happen, at least not just because of Diaspora), then it will have caused far more damage than anyone anticipated.

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I agree. Sure, if we define "failure" as something as embarrassing as "bankruptcy", maybe Facebook won't "fail". But if we define failure as "starting to decline instead of inflate, after years of unchecked growth", well, maybe that's what Diaspora is actually after.

I think the article's other points are equally invalid... How can Facebook's "500 million user" base be the impediment to people adopting Diaspora? Surely, if his logic was correct, then no one would've ever moved to Facebook from MySpace. I would argue that the only reason Facebook has so many users is precisely because a strong competitor like Diaspora isn't here yet.

What's more, his idea that "Facebook gets more users every year, ergo Facebook users don't care about privacy" isn't too valid. How many of those users despise Facebook, but join anyway? How many of those users publish only what they would on a public service like Twitter, keeping their private lives off the web?

There is too much weaseling in this article for me to count it as valid.

   How can Facebook's "500 million user" base be the impediment to 
   people adopting Diaspora?

Because you're going to stay where your friends are, unless it's really easy to switch. It's not going to be easy to switch to Diaspora when you have to host your own node. Then when you do switch, you won't be able to find any of your friends. Diaspora has no solution to the discovery problem. There's no way to search for people, you'll have to ask all your friends where their node is; It will be like exchanging emails again. Sounds like a lot of hassle for not much gain.

Why make it necessary to switch? Make it an adjunct to FB. The more secure super-hip adjunct. I can imagine someone getting their circle of hip friends on FB because they want to share some racy stuff, and they no longer trust FB. It's entirely plausible that they could still keep track of their school chums and parents on FB.

People in protest movements would gravitate toward such software. They have reason to be paranoid about a centralized corporate service.

Everything still stands. It's too much effort for normal people to host their own node and you won't be able to find anyone else on it. They have to solve discovery before it will even come close to useful.

I'm sure there are a number of groups waiting for September 15th to pounce on the opportunity to provide this service: Inexpensive (or free) Diaspora hosting, that's transparent and easy to manage.

@what, I understand the basis of the argument, I just don't think it's logical. Of course popular social services fail, regardless of their user base at time X.

My point -- and I apologize if it was not clearly made -- was not that Facebook can't be beaten, but that Diaspora isn't the product to do so. My position isn't that there isn't dissatisfaction with Facebook, simply that for all the hue and cry about privacy, I don't think intuitive privacy controls are going to be what makes a mass number of average users switch.

Facebook beat MySpace ultimately by being easier to use, with a cleaner interface. It also struck at a time when social networking technology (and broadband access) had matured to the point necessary for mass public acceptance. The normal lifecycle for every major social network before Facebook was about 18 months -- that's about the span of time MySpace was king of the hill.

I in fact predict that Facebook will eventually fade to AOL-esque irrelevance. I just don't think Diaspora has the right value proposition to slay the Facebook dragon.

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