This is precisely why The OpenPhoto Project exists. We're building a system where users give applications valet keys to their data.
Data ownership without portability is a moot point. Many services allow you to download a blob of your content but that's of little to no value for most users. What we really need (it's 2012 after-all) is a more thought out system where the user actually owns and controls their data and gives applications access to them.
This means multiple applications can leverage the same set of data and the user doesn't have to continue using any of them. Basically, there's no single point of failure in terms of data interoperability.
Currently, a user's Facebook content can be used by other services but for this to remain the user must keep their Facebook account open.
We're solving this problem by letting the user grant OpenPhoto software access to their photos. Most likely it's a bunch of photos that reside in their dropbox account but could also be an S3 bucket or box.net account once those become more consumer friendly.
where users give applications valet keys to their data
I love the metaphor. I want Facebook and Google to have my data, because they can't give me good service without it. Unfortunately, as a consumer, giving Facebook or Google access to your data is akin to the Native Americans welcoming the Europeans to their continent. You have no rights, and the balance of power is against you. They own your data now, and you may use whatever part of it they give you permission to use, in the manner they give you permission to use it.
Your metaphor is beautiful, instantly understandable, and puts them in their rightful place as service providers, not overlords.
Not sure I completely understood your first paragraph. Are you saying that as consumers if we give Google access to our data (even if it's limited - aka valet) then they ultimately "take over" the ownership of it?
There's a lot here. If they do get access to your data they'd most likely annotate it and provide you an enhanced experience on data that is owned by them (their annotations on your data). But I think that's okay. We have to be pragmatic here and say that in the example of photos if you give Google access to your photos to display in your G+ account and they collect +'s and comments perhaps it's okay that they "own" that content. As a user you still are better off than today and maybe it's a progression to where more and more data is portable and owned by you...but we have to start somewhere :)
If you maintain a copy of the data and give them access to it, then you aren't going to lose the data. You've lost control of it, since they can take it and do whatever they want with it, but you'll always have your copy. However, very few web apps work that way. The personal data that goes through Gmail is overwhelmingly generated in Gmail, and Google retains the only copy unless you back up all your data at home. Ditto for Facebook -- the only personal data that people are likely to retain a copy of is photographs, and again, that would only be for backup purposes, except for hobbyists who keep raw files or higher-quality images at home. For most people, Facebook serves as a very reliable repository for their personal snapshots.
We're completely at their mercy for all the data we create in their apps, and therefore we're completely dependent on two things:
1) They want to retain customer trust.
2) They are concerned that they might lose that trust if they misbehave.
They're constantly testing the limits of 2) (intentionally or unintentionally.) At some point 1) could cease to be true. They could become so necessary, or so powerful, that people become cynical about the possibility of defying them, and therefore start accepting abusive behavior.
Another scenario is that they could stop caring about customer trust not because they're too powerful but because customers have already abandoned them. Imagine that in 2022 Facebook is a has-been. It has been beaten in social networking, or social networking sounds ridiculously quaint in 2022, and Facebook is a failing company with no prospects for revival. Kind of like SCO. And it happens to possess, as its only asset, a little bit of intellectual "property" (a decade of personal information on a billion people.) Perhaps, in its death throes, it will go the way of SCO, abandon all moral restraint, and attempt to squeeze a windfall out of that "property" in the most cynical way possible. Maybe they'll charge you a ridiculous fee to retrieve your data in a useable form. If their user agreements make that impossible, someone in the company might go rogue and sell all your private data to a shady entrepreneur in a lawless country. They could sell the photos to Joe Francis and individual account histories to blackmailers and gossips. We know that won't happen today, because Facebook has the resources and the motivation to make sure it doesn't happen, but if the company goes to hell, we won't have those assurances anymore.
Data ownership without portability is a moot point. Many services allow you to download a blob of your content but that's of little to no value for most users. What we really need (it's 2012 after-all) is a more thought out system where the user actually owns and controls their data and gives applications access to them.
This means multiple applications can leverage the same set of data and the user doesn't have to continue using any of them. Basically, there's no single point of failure in terms of data interoperability.
Currently, a user's Facebook content can be used by other services but for this to remain the user must keep their Facebook account open.
We're solving this problem by letting the user grant OpenPhoto software access to their photos. Most likely it's a bunch of photos that reside in their dropbox account but could also be an S3 bucket or box.net account once those become more consumer friendly.
http://theopenphotoproject.org or https://openphoto.me if you want to sign up for a hosted account.