I think as ethical, intelligent and conscious individuals, we folks in the developer and hacker community want people to make decisions on the basis of principles, when the reality is that people generally make decisions on the basis of convenience. In fact, people are often willing to sacrifice their principles (to a certain extent) in the name of convenience.

If we want people to use principled technology, then we need to be able to honestly advertise products as "it's just as good as X, and also doesn't violate [your privacy|human rights|the environment|etc.]" If we have to say, "It's not quite as good, but..." then we're dead in the water. (Side note: I switched to Firefox out of principle and I'm hopeful it will hold the line on market share, since it really is just as good as Chrome.)

The issue is that we're dealing with corporations who aren't just rich and powerful, they are also innovative, agile, and laser-focused on providing consumer value. Slack is doing an amazing job at serving their users!

You wrote, "we have to find ways to make better apps built on top of open protocols." It's a really interesting dilemma and I suspect it's one that isn't solved by better technology, better design, etc., but rather by addressing the base economics of the situation. We need a scenario where principled, open-source, ethical technology is generating the kind of investment we're seeing in Silicon Valley unicorns so they can innovate the same way.