Ask HN: Will distributed social network work? Are they late?

Diaspora and tent.io try to create a distributed social network. Are they late in the game? Will they gain momentum?

I see a huge potential here. For e.g. XMPP is a successful protocol (atleast google adopted). I don't like monopoly, i don't want facebook the only option which everyone must choose (Because its centralized).

Whats your opinion?