Great summary.
I think we all already know about Steemit since we are here! I find it interesting that there are so many already.
I knew about Akasha because of my previous involvement in ethereum and Synereo because I was one of the first day ICO investors in it. I only heard about Yours on here a few weeks ago but didn't know much beyond that. I've never heard of Diaspora.
I suspect there will be even more trying to launch in the near future as the cryptocurrency world seems to go through "crazes" where everybody tries to jump on something that might look remotely successful.
In the end only a small number will survive and I suspect they will be the ones who bring something new with their own specific niche - similar to how we have Facebook, Twitter and Reddit now.
They all have some social aspects but their priorities and how they work are very different.
I only learned of Diaspora today although I had run across them on here a little. I watched an interview with Craig Wright, the man who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, and I became fascinated by his story. I would admit that the one person who really opened up my eyes to decentralization is Nikola Tesla. He has correctly predicted much of our world, and the remaining part that has not yet come to pass is decentralization of energy/resources, everything. I see it as an eventuality, a known movement whose time has come. It may take a bit of time for the world to catch on because we're all enshrouded in a cloud of dependency, hierarchy and disempowered feelings. Our current system has conditioned us not to value our thoughts, ideas and energies. We have all been conditioned to believe we are worthless, or that our worth can only be measured by someone else. This is the thing that is stopping us from advancing forward, I think. We can be given the greatest technological advancements, all for free, and yet, if our thinking is not sufficiently advanced, we will squander it. We will devolve into a rancid pile of our own rotting egos. We will miss our chance to push things forward.
That is because of the materialist paradigm. I think it will eventually end though as it ultimately leads to unhappiness no matter how much stuff you have. People in general will have to evolve beyond it or it will lead to our extinction because there aren't enough resources to sustain it.
The planet is already in such a mess. Tesla was a great man easily the equal of Einstein and would have been appreciated more were it not for the jealousy of Edison (sorry I know I keep banging on about it but it is crazy that progress was held up over someone's personal feelings). I think he understood this point about materialism too which is why he didn't pursue business with the vigour that Edison did.
I actually feel lucky in some ways that my health problems derailed my career and made me come to this realisation that I was stuck in that same materialist mindset. Yes I had a lot of money and I could potentially have made a fortune through some psychopharmacology work that I had been offered but I was falling apart inside.
I had stopped doing all the things that made me happy and that brought value to my life because I believed in this skewed model of success that only values material things and career progress. I think life is about much more than that.
The material stuff beyond a certain point (like enough food to eat, shelter, good health etc) can actually get in the way of living life and making progress as a human being.