> It's about what you think because you made claims about how you think things should be.
That's not necessary fair because everyone else is calling for change here.
> Ideally, I feel it should be done by enabling greater competition, perhaps with a requirement for portable user identities, friends lists and reputations or interoperability between networks.
Except that you're just spreading your private information even further. At least if I post my private information to Facebook, it's on Facebook. I'm not worried that, as a feature, my friends are porting my information to other platforms.
> Then they would have competitive pressure to treat their users well and the government wouldn't need to micro-regulate little details.
I agree that competition would be better. In fact, I'd say that Facebook should have been prevented from buying Instragam, Whatapp, etc. But competitive pressure alone does not necessary require companies to treat users better. Facebook would still be the same with competition from these other companies.
> Just those that are in a powerful enough position to cause bigger problems, otherwise it would be disproportionately burdensome on small players or even hobbyists.
That's hard to judge. Just look at Whatapps -- they grew to millions of users with a team of less than dozen people. Are they a small player or a big player? You might end up with a lot of social networks right on the line of being big to avoid additional regulation.
Facebook, for it's part, has been very pro-regulation as they're big enough and profitable enough. This will further make it harder for smaller players to compete even if you limit the restrictions to large players.
> The fact that you want equal treatment for all companies, as well as other things you've said, suggests you're more of an idealist than a pragmatist.
No. But I think you can't have rules for "Facebook" because in 10 years the problem is going to be some other company in some other situation. And you have to be very careful of regulatory capture.