It certainly appears that as far as these companies are concerned, users are owed nothing and developers are owed nothing. We're just stepping stones on the way

It certainly appears that as far as these companies are concerned, users are owed nothing and developers are owed nothing. We're just stepping stones on the way to an IPO or exit. Plenty of micro business owners have found this out the hard way on sites like Etsy or eBay, for instance - they might think that the shop is theirs, and put the URL on their business cards, promote it at craft shows, on their cars, in expensive promotional graphics. All it takes is one idiot admin to close your account, and it's gone (Etsy in particular has notoriously poor practices regarding closing customers accounts, going back for years. There are plenty of of customer service horror stories there. eBay has a long history of NARUing sellers also). I've heard stories about flickr recently, too, deleting accounts - people lose photos, messages, contacts going back years and the company responsible simply doesn't care. The only thing to do is to have your own domain, own website, use open source software, and know what you're doing technically or be close to someone who does. The only people who can take that away from you is courts or the government. This is also why we need networks that work like Diaspora vs. ones that work like Facebook.