Sure. But eventually the walled gardens fail to provide the experience users want, and the open alternatives win. And developers are savvy enough to take the slightly longer view now. - Michael R. Bernstein

I figure savvy developers are using FBConnect to provide a "have your cake and eat it too" solution. - Daniel J. Pritchett

The open, distributed options ought to win in the long end, because they provide a resilience and flexibility closed systems cannot have (not to mention the ability for you to change where your content is without losing the content, contacts and history). But then I remember that all in all newsgroups lost out to forums etc. (of course there were other reasons). Still, now that there is google wave and other projects on the horizon I will no longer be pounded for being "totally behind the curve" with my calls for open and distributed. Of course the normal consumer doesnt care, but they will in time. - Joelle Nebbe (iphigenie)

As with anything, the winning solution is likely in the balance of the two. That is why Facebook has the potential to be a player for a very long time. They are opening up as much as they can, but keeping a lot of control. They also have a huge user base, which counts a lot when trying to determine who you should work with. - Rob Diana

True enough, Rob. Do you want to be right, or do you want to have 200M potential customers? - Daniel J. Pritchett

Well, who is to say that the completely open web is "right"? Developers want it that way, but that does not make it right. Personally, I think being almost completely open is a fantastic idea because you can get an ecosystem built for you, i.e. Twitter. That still does not make one version more "right" than the other. - Rob Diana

it may appear to be a "strong desire for the open web" but it's also a recognition that social media needed centralization to get off the ground, just like the early internet, early blogging, early microblogging. centralization is training wheels, every company's web site will need to be a full participating member of the social web, and it won't rely on technology that's not open. - Brian Hendrickson

They give a damn, they just don't understand the philosophic underpinnings. Just do a google search for why can't I export my Netflix ratings and you'll see people upset about the issue, even if they don't realize it. - Davis Freeberg

Almost nothing that we base our lives on is open. Not cars, phones, planes, work, Starbucks, movies, music, etc. Should software be different? - Todd Hoff

When it comes to software that makes the web work, an open solution can achieve breadth of adoption because it can be fully trusted. -- by developers. - Brian Hendrickson

Little kids do the same: they like staying in a closed garden when they're small. But after some time, they get bored and want to see what's out there. It's called growing up. Hence the internet. ;-) - Ewout

Depending on where you look the internet is actually pretty closed. TCP/IP, communication pipes, DNS, routers, switches, all closed. - Todd Hoff

Most normal consumers don't give a damn.. to begin with. But with experience comes the desire to branch out. - Paul OFlaherty

Where is AOL now, BTW? Probably, you may want to change your comment to "many normal consumers doesn't give a damn initially". Once educated (either through the efforts of web heads or through their own nightmare experience), they don't just give a damn but they DEMAND. - Krishnan Subramanian

Facebook has made huge improvements in openness, such as allowing publicly searchable profiles and providing an API for developers to create add-on applications. While still restricted in many ways, these advances have brought significant value to the user's experience. - Mike Chelen