> If just 5% of the people who bitched about Diaspora "failing" or tried to build their own competitor from scratch just contributed instead, then I think we'd be much farther along.

What incentive does anyone have in contributing to a project that burned 200k and failed? Building something on your own with a clean slate and 100% share in the whole process from ground up is an obvious choice IMO (besides the general idea of pursuing 'the next facebook only better because orwell').