Would your friends and family? Because that's the real trick. It has to be easier than typing "facebook dot com" on your laptop and your phone, anywhere in the world, to be a serious contender. I like the idea, but I don't see that happening.

That's my point. At the moment routers are in the same position smartphones were pre-iphone - they're functional beasts for 99% of people and while they can be 'smart' it's a niche geek activity and it's super tedious. Kind of like what smartphones were like pre-iphone.

Once somebody makes an easy to use, beautiful router with a vibrant one-click-install app ecosystem (backup, calendar, photos, dropbox, email), I'm sure people will want to migrate to it. It's not just about privacy it's also about being more in control of your data, being 'closer' to your data (uploading your baby photos wouldn't take as long) and not having your experience dictated by profit seeking (your app won't mysteriously switch itself to top stories every other day).

We're just not there yet. Every kind of 'smart router' and associated OSS software is kind of a pile of crap, to be honest.

Why would anyone care about being "closer" to their data? Photo uploads are already so fast as to be without considering. And by all indications, nobody materially gives a damn about Facebook picking and choosing what to show you. And Americans obviously don't care about privacy, either.

I think you're asserting a demand without any indications of its existence.