Some good stuff here.

I personally still use facebook, reluctantly. I don't really post anything, and only use the messenger and groups features because that is just the status quo for doing those things. And it is regrettable that that's the case, because privacy is definitely lacking on most mainstream social networks.

I used to think there would be some chance of an 'awakening' to the ridiculous power these organisations have, but I now think, though non-zero, that chance is much lower, since people actually seem to value convenience and latent entertainment over privacy.

The GNU project has GNU social, which is a decentralised platform aiming to be twitter-like, but I was never a user of twitter in the first place and it hasn't really achieved the critical mass required to be well used.

If you can get your friends to use IM, that's neat, but I know that my friends can't be bothered; they'd rather use facebook messenger, and I think that until people have their values set straight (with privacy higher-valued), we will be stuck with ever-growing social network monopolies. I'd love to be proven wrong.