I view it differently. The benefit is being in control of your data, and there's not much of an inconvenience. It's up to competitors to implement the standard. The user will just have to press a "move" button.
I'm not sure if that's a benefit to "mainstream users" as the original commentator specifies. I think most people that use the proprietary platforms never give much thought to who owns their data or even that there is an issue of ownership regarding their data that would affect/impact them.
I disagree. They don't care as much as techie people do, but I think the average person does realize that Facebook/Google/whoever has too much information about them, but there is no usable alternative.
Also because of Network effect, even if there was a usable alternative, there might not be enough people actually using it to make a change worthwhile.
On the Australian ABC news the other day, the anchor was describing how "creepy" she found it that the google doodle on her birthday was a special birthday message to her.
I think the average person is becoming more and more aware of such privacy and data ownership issues with every creepy experience.
