So the question I've asked elsewhere applies... what advantage is it that WordPress is open source now? If they're going to turn it into a social network, they're either going to have closed components (specific to Wordpress.com) or they're going to have to re-invision (and reimplement larges chunks of) it as a distributed social network, something that you seem to be happy to dismiss Diaspora of trying to do. Otherwise, it's just as "closed" as Facebook if I have to use a Wordpress.com site.

I feel like there is a massive misunderstanding of what Jetpack does and provides in the way of a social network. All indications I've seen is that Jetpack just shares to other social networks. It does... effectively nothing... to provide an alternative free of other social networks.

I mean, you even call out Gravatar as being "owned" by Automattic. I don't mind Gravatar but it's a bit stale and certainly not in the vain of a distributed or "open" social network.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I don't see how Wordpress is anything like a social network other than you citing the fact that it can tie into other ident providers and share to other social networks. That describes... a metric ton of sites out there.