So I just became aware of this concept of token-powered decentralized social networks tonight and am doing some research. I see two main contenders: Synereo and Steem. When all factors are considered: fairness to content creators, ease of use for lurkers, fairness of mining... which one do you think will win the impending war of decentralized social media?
Why would you think either one has a chance of being remotely successful? Facebook has literally 33% or so of the world's inhabitants registered and using their service, making a good profit doing so, and the vast majority of people have no qualms about handing over their info to be a part of the network. Reddit is apparently barely profitable, but the mods and content creators of major subreddits can certainly monetize their moderating power or rep for producing content. Why would anyone invest or commit their time to some convoluted "social network" that relies on some third-party token that was completely premined or instamined and is lacking the content and connections of widely used services such as facebook or reddit? Call me jaded, but I'd say neither.
The Facebook comparison is not really valid. Other than sharing the word social there is little resemblance. Steem is somewhat like reddit, also somewhat like a blogging platform, maybe a bit like youtube (the channel organization and commenting features; Steem is not a video hosting service, although videos get linked there regularly). The functionality is nothing at all like Facebook. Whether or why anyone would use it I can't say. The token won't really matter and isn't even particularly visible to end users though, since the content rewards will be paid in a smart coin (USD pegged).
EDIT: The above is about Steem. I don't know enough about Synereo to comment on whether it might be more related to Facebook or whether its token has value.