I never compared the two. And I'm not disagreeing either, but realistically, what's the last protocol that's gained mass developer/user usage? Facebook? Twitter? Skype? Whatsapp? Most of these services aren't even accessible without an app. The only recent protocol that comes to mind is bitcoin, but acceptance is still lacking.
Yes, it's a problem with the industry. We have all of these proprietary, unfederated apps instead of open, federated protocols because the only business model anyone can come up with is to wall people into services they have full control over and then siphon up all the data they could get to hand over to the ad networks. We need to come up with a better way of financing the implementation of these services so that people can have better services.
