You read [...] some blogs that say, “Well, the real way to do this is, there should be some distributed system where you just put up your own little server with your own information in that.” But the notion of lots and lots of people doing that, or even understanding what it means, is already just a fantasy.

via Hal Abelson Q&A on Code Quarterly

You may want to read the interview for more context. There's an interesting section about ethics and privacy in computing. He's also written a book on it.