Your comment reminds me of a discussion I've had regarding hybrid vehicles. The argument against hybrid vehicles, the Prius in that case, was that for less mone

Your comment reminds me of a discussion I've had regarding hybrid vehicles. The argument against hybrid vehicles, the Prius in that case, was that for less money a more efficient vehicle (to operate and manufacture), such as a Honda Civic, could be purchased. The conclusion was therefore: it was a waste of money to pay for a Toyota Prius (the further conclusion was that the primary or sole rationale for purchasing a Prius was vanity). My argument was that by purchasing the Prius you would not be making a wise short-term personal financial decision, but you would be supporting the fledgling hybrid industry. The result would then be a faster growth cycle of the hybrid industry, decreasing costs and promotion of the industry beyond just the Prius line, affecting greater efficiency across multiple manufacturers and models. If your goal is to support the open standards based social networking industry, financial support for Diaspora may not result in Diaspora becoming a credible Facebook competitor, but it will assist in the longer term development of open standards based social networking.