A big issue with federated or, going even further, P2P alternatives to centralized platforms seems to be monetization. It's not so long ago that everyone seemed to be wondering if FB could turn a profit on their platform. What can an open, decentralized system do for revenue? Donations? Commercial tech support for node operators? It must pale in comparison with FB's advertising revenue.
This means a decentralized system can't beat a centralized one at marketing. Even with large resources, beating an established competitor is hard, but when the competitor has, and will always have, a huge edge in funds they can throw at user attraction, the problem seems insurmountable.
I agree, but I think a federated platform would look more like email. Very little advertising, mostly given away for free.
With a federated platform, that's possible because no single company is shouldering the entire cost. And users would migrate to the cheapest provider since they wouldn't be tied to any particular provider.
What does Facebook offer for all that money that is necessary, though? That is, why is monetization such a big deal for a communications platform? A marketing competition? There's no inherent need to participate in that.
A communications platform is useless if its user base is small; who will you communicate with? People have some limit on the amount of different communication platforms they can participate in simultaneously. The number one way to get more people on your communications platform is to have lots of people on it already; the number two way is convincing people to use it (that is, marketing).
Monetization is a big deal because communications service for 1.7B people is expensive, and Facebook is actually a very efficient system compared to regular telecom.
A centralized communications service for 1.7B people is expensive. Not that decentralized or federated services would be cheap, but the costs would be dispersed.
This means a decentralized system can't beat a centralized one at marketing. Even with large resources, beating an established competitor is hard, but when the competitor has, and will always have, a huge edge in funds they can throw at user attraction, the problem seems insurmountable.