Social media's future
Centralization, in part, killed LJ. It's a problem for every social media platform because it gives power to a single organization to use and manage access to our data. If social media was a set of protocols that enforced only a universal format for our content and we could them select which organization we wanted to use to host and control access to that content, we'd be able to use the technology to have the best of all worlds so long as we could find a hosting provider that matched terms we find desirable and acceptable, with easy ability to move to another housing provider if our desires change.
There's a bright future out there for a social media affiliated network.