Similarly, the nobel peace price was worthless long before it was awarded to Obama, precisely because it was being awarded to people that had not earned it.
Also, I don’t think it has to do with greatest number of people impacted, rather the avg impact multiplied by the number of folks affected. Wikileaks impact on say 30 million people * how much the average impacted individual’s life has changed > Zuck’s impact on 600 million people * the very marginal change in the life of average user. I also wonder if this change need be 'real' or 'perceived'.
You see, the award itself is not worthless, because the real value in it is making the general population aware of yourself.
"Any time spent debating whether Assange should have won it could just be spent actually helping the Wikileaks movement."
Arguments of this form are always silly. I don't dedicate all of my free-time to any one task, nor do I have any desire to do so. I lose nothing by taking 2 minutes out of my day (2 minutes that would have otherwise been spent picking my nose or staring at the wall) to complain about Assange not getting this award.
Also, the argument is not silly. You absolutely lose something by taking 2 minutes of the 34,790,000 minutes or so you have. You lose 2 minutes. The better use of those 2 minutes in support of Wikileaks would be looking for a new leak or more realistically, circulating information that they've recently leaked.