There is a significant difference between 'thought of' and 'are'. In reality fb is not essential to anyone's life, merely by the fact that you need a computing device connected to the internet to access it. If you have internet access you have other means to communicate with people that are not reliant on fb. There is no way in the near term that fb will be governed as a utility, and I believe doing so is more harmful than not because that will only force fb to exist in the future with government protection vs letting the market determine if a new/better/different social network can arise.