> Another way to look at it is that depending upon social media for anything beyond promotion leaves you at the whim of those companies.

Another instance of that is when your account at these proprietary companies simply disappears for no reason. It is far too risky to depend on them.

A long-time friend, for example, has a decades old business which had a 15+ year presence on facebook. A few weeks ago the account just silently disappeared. Obviously any response from facebook is impossible to obtain.

Luckily they also have their own website with all the content.