I think the biggest barrier to people setting up personal/"open" websites is the exhaustion of the .com namespace. If your name is common or even remotely plaus

I think the biggest barrier to people setting up personal/"open" websites is the exhaustion of the .com namespace. If your name is common or even remotely plausible, it's taken by a squatter. One of the key advantages of a closed, locked-down social networking environment is the ability to have multiple people identified by the same real name, and a relatively less crowded field for screen names (because squatting is less of an issue).