Cashbook... er, I mean Facebook.

Is Facebook a monetized Wikipedia pretender?
Facebook is a Cash-cow. Nothing more, nothing less. Facebook presents itself as something Wiki-like, a "public" institution. But is it, at all?

Shares in Facebook aren't public - you cannot "buy-in" unless you're very well heeled. Partnership in Facebook is reserved for the wealthy.
How is something that's reserved for the wealthy "social"?

One of the issues with Facebook's 'policies' might be that Facebook is neatly misrepresenting itself as something 'public' and 'free'.
The advertising displayed on its pages means you're paying. Not directly, but paying nonetheless. – Advertisers pay for space and/or time slots, and that expense is borne by the customer/market.

Have a look at this news-excerpt from the BBC about the latest Facebook privacy/security hack.

Facebook "clickjacking" spreads across site.

Being viewed as a free service by users has allowed a lot of latitude in Facebook's privacy strategy. – The false impression that something is free because there is no price-tag, tied to the half-truth that it's the user's responsibility to limit his or her public exposure.

Facebook seems to pop up in the news fairly regularly – mostly because of breaches and failings in its privacy and security model.

There are two sides to every argument, and one of the arguments favoring Facebook's approach to governance and responsibility, is that the world is a changing place, with new, web-centric privacy needs and that Facebook and Zuckerberg are actually doing a good job in stretching the envelope of acceptable privacy standards.
Somewhat ironically, considering the recent flurry of activity in the 'free' and 'open source' communities regarding a 'free' and 'public' alternative to Facebook, part of the public fascination with Facebook is its financial success.

The other side of the argument, of course, is that Facebook is failing miserably at protecting user's vital information despite the fact that they're raking in billions.

There's been a flurry of discussion about a new, open-source based Faceplace – Something factually public.

Amongst all the foo-ra-ra, one can discern a call for an open-source oriented Facebook equivalent. Such an application, and some of the required infrastructure, already exists in the form of Wikipedia. All that's really missing are some cool little interactive applications and a profile-centric deployment. It even has the added bonus of providing a socially relevant context – the Wikipedia.
A 21^st Century Social Network in place of Facebook's pretentions.

Wikipedia is succeeding despite 'expert' predictions that it would never make it.
In its early days, most of the supposed web-experts predicted that Wikipedia was doomed to failure and were they right? Wikipedia has become one of the shining stars of the internet.

Combine a Wikipedia engine and infrastructure with a good chat engine, some fun little third-party apps, and maybe an area for users to put forward their own products and ideas, maybe something along the lines of Etcy, and you get what Facebook purports to be.

Personally, I'm fan, (or hanger-on), of Facebook, or, better, the idea behind it. The concept epitomizes so much of what the internet is about. I'm also of the opinion that Facebook might not be doing nearly enough for the societies/markets that support it, especially considering the amount of money being raked in.
As it stands today, Facebook is largely the venue of billionaire-beggars, (jealousy, oh jealousy...). The fact that it's doing so well illustrates the immense need of advertisers in the information age.

If Facebook's not so great, if it's really just an extension of the advertising industry, what else is there? Are there alternative, equally useful sites that offer the benefits that Facebook does?

Good question! Good answer: Yes there are, and I'll present them in a follow-up.
In the meantime, here's a couple of links to Facebook-related articles that you might find interesting. Particularly this WIRED story about alternatives to Facebook, and this "What is Facebook good for?" blog-post, check it out to learn about Facebook's useful features.
WIRED's article about Google Me also has a couple links worth following.

This CBSnews article , and this FoxNews article, about SharePost, might also be of interest. – SharePost is a new service that's intended to facilitate the trading of private stock - again, so far, you have to have a fairly hefty pocket-book to be able to use the service, but, generally speaking, where there's a will...

Here is a very interesting link to a BBCnews dot.Maggie blog post about Diaspora, a new project that's cleverly being billed as The Anti-Facebook.

Another interesting project is OneSocialWeb. From the sounds of it, the folks there are interested in inter-connecting the various social-networks. Looks like a promising project.

Please comment.