What is wrong with Facebook, Google+, PINterest, and all other social networks?

Fundamentally, I want to believe that all social networks have, at their core, an awesome mission - connecting people so that their lives can be fuller.

Whether, just clever marketing message or a genuine, initial driving force, it is fair to say that their current top imperative is geared towards profitability.

And in that drive to extract value for their shareholders and investors, they miss the point and shed any illusion (which they sold to their users) of them being good stewards.

Instead, they claim ownership of any user data that gets put on their platform, they package user data into neat groups that are sold to advertisers (and anyone who can pay), they charge advertisers for access to the significant user populations on their networks and they leverage user data to sell products to those same users.

In a nutshell, the problem with current social networks is that they have betrayed the trust of their users (and found that they can get away with it).