That seems to be the takeaway.

Centralization of just about anything is an issue, not just messaging.

However, users still want/need the kinds of advantages that we get from monopolies/centralization, and implementing them in distributed systems is really hard.

Stallman was right.

Stallman was right, but some times I think this is bigger than just software. This is about power, and software is just one of many tools. Stallman was right, but I wonder if his ideas would have resonated more widely if they had been framed in terms of power.