Facebook and YouTube are both virtual monopolies. But why? Do not other similar social sites exist? (I have a Myspace account, for example, altho’ I’ve long since forgotten my password.) Frankly, I use FreeRepublic the way I would use my Facebook or YouTube accounts. Is there no way we could not set up a video-sharing network as well as a discussion forum?
There are some secure peer to peer applications that are interesting. I’ve tried Retroshare with a few others but one problem is that most people don’t want to expend any effort to secure privacy.
The Freedombox project was supposed to produce a plug in appliance fully configured but that project seems to be in perpetual gestation.