Umm, we used to call those "personal websites". They were the norm during much of the 1990s.
They did take some time, effort, skill and money to set up, but they did give far more control over what information was shared, and who had access to it.
They did take some time, effort, skill and money to set up, but they did give far more control over what information was shared, and who had access to it.
It does seem like this is a matter of time, though. We managed to build the entire Internet as a system of systems that work together remarkably effectively despite no one authority having universal control of everything.
The main thing keeping sites like Facebook safe today is the critical mass of customers they have, and the fact that current sentiments (and the occasional multi-million dollar marketing effort) encourage newcomers to put their data "in the cloud" in return for not paying any money to store it and not having to worry about the technical details. There are certainly technically viable alternatives.