Even just simple 'sharing' things get to me: I want to get a huge bunch of files from my computer to a friend. For semi frequent transfers I just give my friend credentials to a guest account on a VPS so he can rsync them down.
I wonder if we'll ever get a fundamental method of moving files peer to peer that is as easy as email (and similarly open). Something like Resilio (Bittorrent) Sync or Syncthing but more ad hoc?
About moving files it also numbs my mind that we still haven't really solved this as we close the 2010s. I think it'll get easier as we gradually move mainstream storage to clouds but it begs the question of ownership; the now-old meme of dropbox etc being "someone else's computer". I strongly believe that a decent cloud provider should encrypt everything before data leaves the user's screen and until it reaches some end user's (blind transport and storage, just like the post office doesn't peak on your letters and boxes). Provided decent API and tooling some of these providers could indeed allow peer-to-peer management. Local storage is dying for the mainstream as networks get better, and it's ok if we tackle the privacy issues the right way. I think.
A notable act would be to join the course of an ongoing project, if one which is flexible enough to build onto exists.
For cost reasons, quality, and security, I think it should absolutely rely on open-source pieces (and be an open-source project itself, to allow for public review and efficient feature growth). Whoever (individual, group) assembles said solution should therefore become a de facto contributor to all projects used, if only for the sanity of the arch-project.
The matter of profitability bugs me though, because it should not be for profit but you need full-time devs and actually a whole company to run the project with excellency (it needs to be 'sold' to users, I mean promoted to be known and used, a bit like NGOs, and supported/maintained), so I think opt-in marketing (ads, or taking a cut on peer-to-peer contracts like Spotify I mentioned) could be one way of doing it. Ideally, the corporate structure would be not-for-profit so there's no dividends (people and businesses get value but the actual structure doesn't beyond paying employees and contributions, that should be enough incentive for all actors, B or C or states, to root for its neutral continuation, kinda like DNS or email). The point being that everyone had motives for it to exist but no one would profit directly from it, only through it. It's like the police, or the state itself, or public streets: collectively supported.
The Open Source community needs an open committee founded on promoting projects of this nature. -- [Open committee over closed since such a foundation could easily be corrupted by personal interests]
Basically a digital metaphor that you own your 'space' (eg home) and grant other people a temporary right to come in and see/use an item or hear/participate in a conversation. Strong emphasis on the legal aspect since no gov or law enforcement should be able to peek inside without proper authorization (warrant, probable cause, etc).
Diaspora indeed was an interesting idea in theory (good first step I'd say) but the execution sadly was flawed (too cumbersome to sell it to anyone, even free as in beer).
As far as I'm concerned, no social solution satisfies these tenets yet, and so that's an open 'market' as we speak. Blockchain is conceptually a good basis for history/logging (I'd considered torrent to be a good candidate before that).
Monetization of user data could be achieved on an individual basis by granting rights to commercial entities (eg Xbox, Spotify, clothing brand...) to monitor specific activities (eg my gaming metrics, my listening metrics etc). You'd have per-user contracts (eg Spotify authorized by x million people to monitor their musical habits, paying each a few cents per week possibly deducted from their bill if subscribed to the actual premium service).
No middleman, or at least not necessary by design if you can in-house the whole monitoring/marketing (but agencies would likely appear, such as Google adword or Facebook ads operate currently). In this design, even Facebook or any social media would have to be granted rights to read your data, and could not hold/copy it beyond said authorization (in storage space, also in time).
The whole point being to transfer physical and legal ownership back to users, thus able to revoke all rights to anyone, and operate solely on a peer-to-peer basis (maybe I just want to talk to a few people and that's it).
Newsfeeds of sorts can also be envisioned on a per-user basis if said user runs some dedicated software which sorts and presents data this user has viewing rights to, hopefully in a much more customizable way than current Silicon tech monopolies.
At least that's the idea. I'm pretty sure we'll eventually have something like that, we can't keep on digitalising our world with ever less control, it's a bit of a country without public space and no individual private space either, only corporations (not far from the ontology of fascism, although consensually accepted here since you're not obligated legally, only socially pressured into using said networks).
But from this idea to actual execution, there is still a pretty huge gap, notably because any worthy solution needs to be actually adopted by a majority of users. It needs to be sellable to the highest extent (even if it were free), and thus provide actual value over existing solutions. Tooling, ease of use, clarity so as not to trick users, all aspects matter.
Ten years ago I thought this would be long done by now. I evolved into thinking this is actually somewhat of a hard problem (per real-world constraints of all kinds, ie social, political, ethical, not strictly technically) that I want to actively try to tackle personally, whatever I can bring to a solution.