Facebook has 500 million active users. That’s half a billion unique users per month. For someone whose site rakes in 40-50 unique users on in its busiest month, that’s a staggering number. That’s something like 1/13 of all the people on the planet or a little less than twice the population of the United States. It’s a ridiculously big number. Get it?

Of course it also means that Facebook has become, essentially, a utility… like the phone company. And in tech, there’s nothing sexy about being a utility. That’s what leads to my next question… What’s after Facebook? Growth can’t drive on forever simply given the relatively finite number of people on the planet. Is there a next big thing out there somewhere that early adopters are streaming towards? If there is, I haven’t found it yet. Then again, early adopters can be annoyingly difficult to pin down.

Perhaps a more important question altogether: at what point does government make the determination that a company life Facebook is “too big to fail” or rather “too big to be unregulated.” Like most users, I like my interwebs government free, thanks. But I can easily see a not too distant future when Uncle becomes so concerned about corporate protection of personal data that they start passing helpful laws that “look out” for the people and their privacy. Given the choice between a government that wants to protect my privacy and a company I can opt out of giving information to in the first place, I’ll throw my lot in with the corporate fat cats every time. Sure, a corporation can do some nasty things with your data, but ultimately, if I’m not satisfied with how I’m being treated, I and the other 500 million users can vote with our feet.

I tend to think that people forget that business stays open only through the good graces of the people who purchase their products or services. When enough of those customers are displeased, the business model adapts to the new reality or it is starved either in the consumer marketplace or by displeased shareholders denying it capital. That’s an overly simplistic explanation, of course, but you get the point.

There’s so much of the power of the internet and interconnectivity that remain untested, but I think it’s safe to say that organizing in the cloud is the next logical step in the internet evolution. This milestone for Facebook is a good indication that the world is finally becoming comfortable with tech… if not the bleeding edge, at least the basic consumer type. This is progress. Let’s hope we manage not to derail it by applying 19th century governance to 21st century issues.