It doesn't matter who controls social media; federated or not, social media is inherently harmful to humans. In a few years we will find out it's like cigarettes. Addictive and harmful, and needs regulation, if not outright bans.
But going back to this obsession about data. It's really an obsession with control. But none of you really have control. You hope that you can "engineer" your way into control of your own lives, of your data, even of the way the world works. But engineers do not have power. Businessmen do. Until you realize that, you will continue writing technical specifications like this, making micro-communities, and missing the big picture. Control requires power. Power requires money. If you can't monetize it, you have no control.
Whatever federated thing you think is going to win, isn't going to win, if there isn't enough money to back it. Because someone with money will just make the biggest "federated thing" (or not; it could be completely proprietary and billions of people will still use it), and eventually close it off once they have enough users. You cannot engineer your way out of money, politics, or human nature.
I tried to make the case that the design of web itself creates different dynamics than the design of today’s social networks in a demonstrable way (walking away from hosting is still easy so it became commodified). I get your pessimism but I wonder how you’d engage with that argument. I think it shows the shape of the thing actually matters.
But going back to this obsession about data. It's really an obsession with control. But none of you really have control. You hope that you can "engineer" your way into control of your own lives, of your data, even of the way the world works. But engineers do not have power. Businessmen do. Until you realize that, you will continue writing technical specifications like this, making micro-communities, and missing the big picture. Control requires power. Power requires money. If you can't monetize it, you have no control.
Whatever federated thing you think is going to win, isn't going to win, if there isn't enough money to back it. Because someone with money will just make the biggest "federated thing" (or not; it could be completely proprietary and billions of people will still use it), and eventually close it off once they have enough users. You cannot engineer your way out of money, politics, or human nature.