Note that I wasn't criticizing anything (or any one) in particular, just observing the situation Diaspora finds itself in. There's no doubt in my mind that the Diaspora team did their best and their efforts are appreciated by myself and many others.

I only expressed my melancholy given that Diaspora didn't catch on even though it had a very promising start. It's also quite sad that I still have to use Facebook (to keep in touch with friends, get invitations to events, etc.) even though I know that my rights are infringed on a regular basis.

I've founded and co-founded several start-ups myself and I know that failing sucks and that it's (very) hard to succeed. But to argue that the Diaspora guys were just "another" run-of-the-mill basement start-up is not fair. They had a $200k head start and significant media coverage before they wrote one line of code.

>They had a $200k head start and significant media coverage before they wrote one line of code.

Could it be that they concentrated too much on the product early on?

Let's not forget that they also lost a founder a year into the project.