This seems to be nothing like Diaspora. Diaspora sought to free users from a single entity owning and controlling their personal data. Altly seems to seek to simply be another single entity with control of your personal data. I don't see how that's a good thing for users.
I also doubt it'll be much of a threat to facebook...if your only argument is that Coke has a Pepsi and Chevy has a Ford, you've got a pretty weak grasp of how markets work. New colas pretty much never succeed; Pepsi and Coke were strong regional brands that went national, and there has pretty much never been a credible threat to that market from a new company. New car manufacturers are practically impossible to build in the US (Tesla is the only new car manufacturer of note in decades, and it remains to be seen how well it will fare; Saturn doesn't count, as it's just a subsidiary of GM; AMC went under after a long struggle). Markets, in general, don't care if there's competition. Markets just insure that when a dominant player shows weaknesses, someone steps into the gap. That's happened with facebook; there are many social apps that tackle small bits of the problem (like Twitter). In order to succeed, a direct competitor to facebook needs to find a chink in facebooks armor and exploit it...not just assume that everyone will flock to an "alternative to facebook" because it is an "alternative to facebook".
Agreed 100% and I would just add this one point. Social networks are a winner-take-all game. You're either dominant or nothing. Nobody wants to use a social network with only 400 other people on it. That would defeat the whole purpose. Of course, there are specific niches such as Twitter, but Twitter dominates its niche.
In a way, social communication and network sites are anti-competitive.
I think its rather early days to reach this conclusion. A social network is just a network of people. In the real world small networks of like minded people have often had a disproportionately large amount of utility. The one thing for large social networks right now is that they provide a global namespace of people which helps discoverability. But perhaps in the coming years we shall see social networks emerge for vertical talents where likeminded people can work productively (Mendeley etc come to mind). You could arguably make the point that within each of these verticals a single player will dominate.
Yes, I see where you're coming from. Let me refine my point. Niches will probably get smaller and smaller. Facebook may lose market-power to smaller, more focused networks. I'm just not sure if that will weaken Facebook to the point that Facebook stops being "the" social network. Facebook is still the ultimate place for global connectivity. Perhaps Facebook will remain Facebook, but people will stop using it as their main social outlet.
Like you said, this could result in dominant players within a vertical space. But, how large will these vertical spaces be? I don't know. If i knew, I'd be a millionaire. (I'm not.)
I wonder if Facebook could actually become too big.
If everything i write into Facebook will be read by friends, bosses, grandma, and father-in-law, i will probably write nothing or only simple jokes.
So there might be a point, where everybody has a Facebook account, but nobody uses it anymore.
This might be counter by introducing more controls, but that complicates the interface.
That's exactly the same argument that was made about content, back in the days of PlayNet, AOL, Prodigy, and the like. Yet, somehow, open websites won; you could also make the same argument about email.
Why isn't it possible that social networks will be like the web, and that all these proprietary services will wither away in the face of an open protocol? I'm not saying that's inevitable; I just wonder why everyone believes that the converse is inevitable.
You know, your question got me thinking. I've been trying to imagine a open platform for social networking and I just...can't...conceive of one. Maybe my mind is too limited and uncreative, but I just feel like a open platform would defeat the purpose of social networking sites.
For example, LinkedIn - a social network for professionals. If LinkedIn became "open," its utility disappears. You would not be able to trust your "connections" because the network wouldn't be full of professionals. Closed platforms are a bit more trustworthy (and only a bit!). Facebook is probably as open as it gets.
Huh? LinkedIn has absolutely no restrictions on who can be a member or who can be connected. They only data they curate is the global search index, but that can be replaced by anything else on the Internet, like email or XMPP.
I'll disagree with the notion that "Social networks are a winner-take-all game". I, and i'm sure many others do too, use different social networks for different group of friends.
I.e. I use Facebook primarily to keep in contact with my family and friends who i don't see on a regular basis. I use LinkedIn to keep in touch with people I met on a professional basis. I use Whatsapp to keep in touch with people who are really close to me.
I know Whatsapp is not exactly a social network but I believe that it is a first step towards fulfilling a niche that is ripe to be disrupted: A social network for your INNER circle of friends; close friends/family that you interact with on a regular basis. I don't believe any "social network" has fulfilled this niche yet.
So in short, social networks is NOT a winner-takes-all-game and there are opportunities to disrupt. I myself is attempting this by taking the Whatsapp model and expanding on that.
I also doubt it'll be much of a threat to facebook...if your only argument is that Coke has a Pepsi and Chevy has a Ford, you've got a pretty weak grasp of how markets work. New colas pretty much never succeed; Pepsi and Coke were strong regional brands that went national, and there has pretty much never been a credible threat to that market from a new company. New car manufacturers are practically impossible to build in the US (Tesla is the only new car manufacturer of note in decades, and it remains to be seen how well it will fare; Saturn doesn't count, as it's just a subsidiary of GM; AMC went under after a long struggle). Markets, in general, don't care if there's competition. Markets just insure that when a dominant player shows weaknesses, someone steps into the gap. That's happened with facebook; there are many social apps that tackle small bits of the problem (like Twitter). In order to succeed, a direct competitor to facebook needs to find a chink in facebooks armor and exploit it...not just assume that everyone will flock to an "alternative to facebook" because it is an "alternative to facebook".