"I believe that future social platforms will behave more like infrastructure, and less like media companies."
Great, line. Exactly what I was thinking as I was reading the letter. Completely necessary to to create an eco-system that developers/consumers will want to use. Monetizing the eco-system can come later, just as it did with Google search.
I'm not blind to the notion that patents exist to protect business (both big and small) however, I still can't help but think, when these sorts of things just end up hurting the consumer then something is terribly wrong! I guess the question becomes, "Overall, are patents good or bad for consumers?"