Why facebook is scary, potentially taking over the World, and potentially dying

I have a lot I'd like to include in this somewhat serious post, but bear with me, and I'll try not tot be overly prolix.

Firstly, it is important to me to say that I think facebook is one of the scariest things out there. It is past a point where delusions of grandeur turn into some sort of twisted reality where facebook has been placed on a shrine for all to see and it no longer matters much what it says, because the whole system has become so convoluted and maddeningly complex that noone can make perfect sense of it anyway. And we are all subject to Facebook's whims and iterations, twists and turns because we are all so far down into the system.

When it started out, theFacebook (now just facebook) was a small space where you could share pictures and opinions, reconnect with long lost friends and enemies, and perhaps spend a bit of time on a silly game, but now it has turned into a monster of a thing that knows that it mostly owns the social networking scene, the latter being the damgerous part. As of right now, the site has more than 400 000 000 active users; about 6 % of all the people on planet Earth. And they all conform to the need for 15 clicks to make an event or an album or something similar; the five different forms of "liking" with confusing, subtle and important differences between them (the original for which they actually took from FriendFeed, who they later aquired); the immense number of privacy settings (I was going to count them, but gave up around 70), not to mention the account settings and separate application settings which also affects your privacy; and the constant torrent of new designs and privacy policies spewed nearly monthly out of the machine that is facebook.

In trying to merge your online profile and your identity, Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of facebook) has created an information gathering giant that generated positive revenue for the first time half a year ago, and shows no sign of stopping that trend. As I see it, one of two things can happen: One is that a good, open alternative pops up which requires fewer clicks and manages to convince some users to migrate, making sure others follow in their wake. This is the option I'd definitely prefer. The other is the one that makes facebook scary as hell.

As of now, facebook is worth a bit more than 4 billion dollars. What if they could increase that number tenfold? With the introduction of Facebook Connect in 2007, they started spreading their influence across other sites as well, so that if you have been using this feature, you will be even more hard pressed to let go of facebook. After all, it is so simple to just log in to facebook, and then not having to log in at, say, Digg or TechCrunch. This might, however, be slightly dispelled by Firefox' possible future integration of security and logins in the browser. At least if it is adopted by other browsers as well. Now, imagine if you will, that facebook came up with the idea of expanding their business into something they might call social banking or social shopping. If they could extend e-commerce fluently into the social sector, there would be no stopping them. Paypal has been around forever, and is a well known and trusted money-handler, but consider that you already entrust mostly all of your secrets and personal information to facebook. Having them handle a few transactions as well would not be such a big step, and could easily increase the value and revenue of facebook by a fairly large factor. I even feel myself that if facebook could both help me gather opinions from my friends about a product and handle the transaction after i have decided to buy something, that would be a great way for me to do it, and a minor fee to facebook might be worth conforming to the rules of the beast considering what I get out of it.

I feel it is safe to say that if a good alternative arise, I will convert rather readily, and try to convince others to do the same, although I am a rather heavy user of facebook at the moment myself. Facebook has become insanely huge and complex, and eventually, unless they either make it all simple again or manages the feat I mentioned above, I believe it will drive off the people to other grounds. And somehow, I hope that happens.
Because facebook scares me.
And it should scare you too.