Interesting thoughts on decentralization. That would have made for a smarter public, and probably participation on lower numbers. Both would be good.
What bugs me is that we *can* use the open internet to speak out, connect, socialize, etc. There is no real need for silos like Facebook. The tech is already available: websites/blogs, RSS feeds, email, XMPP for IM, IRC for group chat. But for various reasons all of this proven, freely available tech has become the province of techies; ordinary people who used to think that Internet Explorer was the internet now think the same of Facebook.
The Ripley Threshold- I love it! Never heard that classic phrase named that way before.
I might have to expound upon this in a separate post. :)