This is what I thought too but as others have pointed out elsewhere in this thread how would they provide additional services on top like search and I don't know what.
Come to think of it though, if the service is free (i.o.w. you are the data and advertisers are the actual customers wouldn't Google/Facebook or whoever be more concerned with the security and privacy of those paying the bills rather than the data-points generating harvestable content.
So it really does seem that we need to move ultimately to federated, paid-for services for communication at least, like POTS but for email and chat and whatever.
Come to think of it though, if the service is free (i.o.w. you are the data and advertisers are the actual customers wouldn't Google/Facebook or whoever be more concerned with the security and privacy of those paying the bills rather than the data-points generating harvestable content.
So it really does seem that we need to move ultimately to federated, paid-for services for communication at least, like POTS but for email and chat and whatever.