Actually, they don?t.
Most people don?t even consider something like McDonald or Microsoft to be any sort of threat to them and frankly, why should they ?

I would second your point regarding potential government originated abuse since historically that?s where loss of freedom tends to originate from.

People tend to use services like facebook and others for the same reason people like to use banks, go shoping to Sears or use any number of other similar services ? it is convinient and surely more economical than some sort of ?everybody bakes their own bread? approach which peer-to-peer pretty much amounts to.
Sure, some people will prefer the ?do it yourself? approach but generally this will always be a minority.
And surely, a corporation with their ability to hire technical talent has a better chance to secure your data ? don?t we have enough personal zombie windows machines running out there ? do we really want more ?

Of course, if a company turns out to be abusive and reckless with their potentially very valuable data, there are plenty of ways to handle this abuse, not the least of them being simple market competition where people can just take their business to somebody else who offers better service.

In other words, with exception of repeated attempts to censor/limit/tax activities on the Internet by various government entities, I don?t see anything wrong with the way the Internet is growing ? hell, thanks to the commercial involvement ( and that includes providing non-technical people with new ways to make themselves heard/seen on the web) the Internet is a much more interesting place than it used to be in the early 90s.

Not necessarily, look at the success of RSS aggregation systems. You might choose to duplicate some ‘leader’ element (if permitted), but the original source should be deemed to be the authorative one and referenced for all full access – much like a blog really.

It’s a big logistical challenge for sure though.

I believe most people are tired of feeling like there are monstrous organizations that have overwhelming power over them. A person’s desire for control only comes out of their reality of repression and domination. If the corporations weren’t abusive of their power, and realize their ultimate effect on the world (just take a look around), then things will start to turn around. It seems they are a bit, but all under the mask of marketing. Here are some thoughts:

- if companies care about their own growth over individual interest, then perhaps a new way of thinking for corporations is needed.

- there have always been privacy issues. governments, like the USA, that used every means possible to spy on their people. Governments act like corporations, and corporations act like governments. Since they live off the same currency, they are one and the same. Thus, the individual is slotted into the system.

- rolling your own hosting

- “I think we should be working towards developing technologies that make it easier for individuals to be in charge of their own information” yes, power to the people!

- no matter what technology we create, people can find a way to abuse it. What we need to do is spread enlightened thinking and care for one another.

- Don’t Peer-to-peer and other decentralized models create a lot of data duplication, and thus make it hard to stay current, or in control of information you want to remove?

Course migration is possible, and I’m sure already exists, but if you are moving house that’s one more thing to think about or forget about.

The strength of the “2.0″ stuff out there is that it requires very low amounts of commitment and next to 0 tech knowledge. If something open source encorporating all these techs can really just come to a big red button that anyone can push, then I guess it could go somewhere. It would need an extremely strong, diplomatic and dedicated leader to get it all working.