I think the world needs more intelligent folks like yourself who have a healthy amount of skepticism.  I myself actually consider myself a proponent of these decentralized social networks, and I&#x27;m placing plenty of faith on these open networks...Though i don&#x27;t go in blindly assuming the entire world will eventually adopt these.  For me, if i can get my family and friends at least interacting with me - whether through my network or through a pass-through between the 2 systems - that&#x27;s enough for me.  Much like your email example i agree that most will use some free offering because of ease of use, etc.  However, there are folks like myself who do wish to host our own...but the expectation - much like email - is to ensure interaction is as seamless as possible between the proprietary and the open networks.  I use Gnu Social for now...my hope is that if this stack (Gnu social) fails, i hope it fails fast, just so that the next evolution - whatever that open platform might be - could iterate and progress faster, again with the goal of ease of use&#x2F;implementation, more seamless integration (between networks), etc.