True. You could create an open standard for this, and then people can self-host their own social servers. I don't think that's what the gp was proposing, though

True. You could create an open standard for this, and then people can self-host their own social servers. I don't think that's what the gp was proposing, though. And that's not going to be the norm. Most people don't want to self-host their email server, or even pay for it. They're happy trading their privacy for free gmail, and most don't even realise that this is a problem. So as Nextgrid pointed out: that shifts the problem one step down the ladder. A commercial social client requires someone to pay for it.