Founders of Diaspora, Intended as the Anti-Facebook, Move On, by Jenna Wortham (aside)

Do people actually want to be in control of their social media usage? People love to complain, and Facebook gives them an opportunity to complain about their privacy settings, the changing interfaces, and them selling your personal information. We live in an age, unlike the 60s and 70s, that people want change but do not proceed to seek it out. This is evident through the Occupy Wall Street protests as no one took charge to successfully organize the events, and society didn't care enough to follow through although many people (at first) supported it. Protests are done online these days, but not when it comes to our social media, as our online form of protests use these sites like Facebook. We then have ourselves in a predicament, we can't protest Facebook using Facebook and no one wants to give it up. Google's attempt at a social media site, Google Plus, is not nearly as used as Facebook. In all reality, the founders of Diaspora were not only competing with Facebook, they were also competing with; Google, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Pintrest, Instigram, etc. This may  account for their lack of success, especially because they are competing with some of the biggest entities in this country.
The concept of a crowd-funded online service does not sound appealing because it would inevitably mean money out of my pocket, or as much advertising (if not more) than Facebook. While I do not agree with Facebook's practices, I still use it as it is easier to go with the flow than against it. I use it to keep up with family/friends, enable good communication to large groups of people that I am apart of, advertise for the volunteer organization I am apart of, and post relevant information about all of these things so people are up-to-date with the information I am sending. This entity is integrated within our society so much that going against the grain would put you out on your own, or with few other people, which is where no one wants to be. Protesting this site would mean cutting yourself off from many things you have worked hard for.
I can appreciate that some people decided that they wanted something different, and did something about it. However, contending with Facebook is not a realistic goal. If they perceived this goal as it was, they should (and may be doing now) keep Diaspora only for people that do not want to use Facebook as a means of social networking. If this was a product that people actually wanted, it would catch on in a viral way, and promote itself via word of mouth (they may want to change the name to something more appealing too). Like I said, I can appreciate someone contending Facebook, but in this case Goliath is coming out on top.