Those companies have proved they can't be trusted.
So I believe the answer to that question is to build better, easy to use, decentralized platforms. I think that given a real choice, people would be happy to use open systems. Up until now they haven't been given easily usable alternatives that do all the things they want to do.
The problem is that decentralized systems are always going to be less usable than the centralized systems they compete with. Centralization is what makes better usability possible.
I disagree with this premise.
There's less opportunity for monetary gain, so less effort has been invested in decentralized systems.
I don't think it's an actual inherent technical limitation of decentralized systems. In fact decentralized systems promise many technical benefits. Of course there are also challenges, but in my opinion, not insurmountable ones.
When you let people run away with their creative freedom, you get the Web. That is, nothing talks to anything else in any reasonable way.
And by the way - spam is a problem that those platforms don't solve themselves either as they use their communities to filter that out. So it's only a matter of time before those communities realise they might as well work outside those platforms.
They do so because there is an economic incentive for them.
Decentralized will not do this, as long as they remain non-profit and strive to stay ethical.
This means that the average user will prefer the unethical and addictive platform. Same thing as with fast-food. Not only do decentralized systems need to be technically competitive and surpass hurdles that centralized systems do not have, but they also need users to be made aware of those issues.
They are necessary but utopic.
We need similar campaigns for an ethical internet. People need to understand the problems with the current options and be offered alternatives as good as possible. At the end of the day we can't force companies to behave "ethically"( whatever that means depending on your definition) so a decentralized options will be a better one.
And yet america is fatter than ever and getting fatter quicker than ever.
I think it's time we accept that most people are sheep that give in to even the most primitive forms of manipulation, even after being made aware of it.
Or to put it a bit more delicately, our brain is hardwired to optimise for short term reward functions and the vast majority of us are unable to seek longer term rewards even when consciously desiring them.
So what? That doesn't mean that the campaigns don't work. There has been a decent number of people changing their lives for the better. The fact that there is a tremendous amount of variation on cultural and education levels in the States simply means that certain areas might lag behind in changes. That doesn't mean the changes won't eventually happen.