That's not how it works.
You have rights and easy access to your data - always have. 3rd parties don't get my PII unless I let them. Heck, I can download a ZIP file of everything I've ever uploaded with a single click! It makes zero sense they would prevent you from getting at it, if they did, they'd be breaking their own value prop of a place to share things, which by definition means people need to be able to get at it easily.
Again, this stinks of non-customers trying to interfere with Facebook customers for dubious reasons out of fear.
And who would enforce such a right if we have no governmental oversight?
If they did, they'd be breaking their own value prop of a place to share things, which by definition means people need to be able to get at it easily.
Facebook's value proposition is people sharing things within the platform. You can perfectly well provide that service and at the same time make it hard for users to migrate their data to a different platform. They already did it in the past. [1]
Again, this stinks of non-customers trying to interfere with Facebook customers for dubious reasons out of fear.
Indeed. In this case, the non-customers are Facebook's users and I believe the fear of entirely justified.
[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-blocks-contact-exporting-...
And then what exactly happened? Did competitors beat them on their own market because of superior performance or better regards for the interests of users? Nope. They discovered new markets and solved new problems which made the old markets less relevant. It's not clear to me that this is a process that you can trust will work in the future.
* Personally, I'd rather not have an organization possibly run by Donald Trump know too much about me.*
You mean like Trump Ventures which owns stock of Google, Apple, AT&T, and Tesla (among many others)?
"Until facebook decides to shut down this api - which is at their sole discretion."
Unlikely, given that API is the only reason anyone pays them money.
That argument makes no sense. I as a user don't benefit at all if some analytics company has a contract with Facebook that allows them to access my data. If users should realistically be able to migrate to another service, they need free and automatic access to their data - which Facebook is in no way forced to provide.