I think you're right with what you say about "alternative" social media. > And that's why decentralized, federated, or whatever social networks will never gain

I think you're right with what you say about "alternative" social media. > And that's why decentralized, federated, or whatever social networks will never gain a large scale (>1 million or so) users This is fine. If we have 500 decentralized social networks and 2 centralized social networks, it's awesome. The decentralized networks will be harder for people to make money off of, but not impossible. That's also good. You can use the big soulless social networks for moneymaking, then return to the smaller ones for actual genuine social interaction. > The governments of the world will never allow non-corporations to provide the money transfers necessary for people to "make a living" on such sites. Before the Internet, we had money orders. You can still get them and cash them. In the 90's I used to order stuff via mail using money orders. It's riskier, but I'm not sure it's very much more riskier if you are dealing with someone you are following that has a group you are a member of. It is less convenient.