no, you misunderstood or I haven't explained properly (mostly the latter).

What I said is that the App would download all _your_ photos that you owe on your account. Given that it takes couple seconds max until I see a full photo from the moment I clicked it, it would take tens of minutes to download hundreds of photos: 5 sec per photo x 200 photos == 16 minutes of robot's work while you enjoy your drink.

edit: so this "I would argue that things like the massive photo collections people have made provide a large level of lock-in" becomes an irrelevant problem.

You still lose the entire network of tags around each photo. The most valuable thing about Facebook photos over, say, Flickr photos, is knowing who is in them.

those are little issues that can be programmed in. I can save every photo tag and info about tag for uploading that info into the new network (but saving it for now)

Don't think so. Your hypothetical app saves all of my photos, but I suspect people spend far more time browsing other peoples' photos. Those I don't get by being the first to migrate to a Facebook competitor. That's where the powerful lock-in lies.

no it doesnt. when something "better" shows up people will want to move on, but you are right there will be like "oh, all my photos and tags, I cant leave them". "But wait, there is that App that Joe programmed and Mary, Mike, John and Jennie already used it, I can use it too and all my photos will be re-linked and re-tagged on that new site. yay me!"

is it really that hard to imagine??

Aman verma