I think safebook in itself isn’t enough to get large amount of users to switch, but it’s a start.
There is a very interesting thing that happens once the users own the data themselves and the database isn’t locked away in some servers in a datacenter.
With facebook, if there’s something you don’t like, you can’t do much more than whine about it or stop using facebook.
With apps running on SAFE and the users being in charge own their own data, anyone could write a new app that uses the exact same data.
Maybe you made safebook and I’ve been using it for a while, but I don’t like the way posts are prioritized in my news feed I make my own version, booksafe, that any safebook user can use, but it uses another algorithm for choosing which posts to put in the feed.
That’s what I think could eventually get users off facebook. The ability to experiment with different concepts, completely different ways of displaying the same underlying data is what might be the key.
I can have my contact list and use it with a simple instant messaging app, but can choose not to use any apps with news feeds or whatever. If we’re both using different IM client, I’m using SafeBook Messenger, but you’re instead using What’s SAFE, we can still message each other as long as they use the same data format.
With SAFE you can always use your data with any app that supports the data format. You can take your contact list, messages etc with you and use in any social network on SAFE as long as it knows how to render the data. Maybe some doesn’t support, say, groups, but then it will just ignore your groups, but you’ll still have your chatrooms. Another one that supports groups maybe doesn’t support chatrooms, but you’ll have the option to use what you want and your data can always follow your anywhere, without any need for exporting it and importing it or whatever.