The recent flip-flopping of Facebook’s terms of service was jarring, to say the least. And if the people won this time, as the blogosphere proclaimed when Facebook rescinded its fraught content ownership claim, it’s a victory in awareness only. Facebookers now realize that the conceit of a “private online” is about as real as a Madoff investment.

It’s perpetuated through nifty little setting options like “Friends Only,” “Edit News Feed,” “Block A User,” and the fact that nearly every single person you know is doing it. Indeed, the soothing reinforcement of 150 million people is probably the most potent.

The problem is there’s nothing to be done about it. Even if Facebook hadn’t caved, how many people would actually have closed their accounts? No one I know.

First there would be a round of status message quips at Facebook’s expense (”Katie is wondering if Facebook is going to sell her Halloween pictures to Maxim.”) Soon after, people would post the condemning articles to their profile pages, create groups “1,000,000 Strong Against Content Ownership.” But few, I believe, would actually quit and cut themselves out of the virtual social fabric. What other entity exists to mop up the discarded masses who have grown accustomed to a life of constant online communication and disclosure, and quite seriously, depend on it?