@ Transcontinental
Revolutions are always tough to swallow. In fact, cloud computing already is a reality. Many of the youngest internet users access the internet from many different places – home, friends’, school or library computers. Look at the success of MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Blogger, etc. etc. etc. This generation routinely uses online networks and online data storage. This is also the generation that is going to shape the future.
I think it will become increasingly uncomfortable to swim against the mainstream. Of course “old school” computing will not disappear, just like cash payments and postal letters are still in use. So relax, there are many shades of gray.

@ Maximillian
I agree. But do you really think that if they want to read your eMail they are not already doing it? You have to use the internet to send mail and someone else has to use the internet to receive your mail. eMails are passing through servers, very likely servers located in the US, and no matter how well your eMails are encrypted (if you use encryption at all), if someone wants to read it, they will be able to crack the encryption sooner rather than later.
I think it’s naive to believe that you can escape big brother. The only thing you can do to make it tough for big brother to use anything against you, is to remain unpredictable, use proxies, mask your browsing habits if you will or flood him with data, and use old school technology for stuff that is seriously confidential.
On the other hand, I hope that big brother isn’t all that interested in me. After all I’m just one out of roughly 7 billion people. If they delivered tailored ads to my desktop, I couldn’t care less. My taste varies, my preferences develop, and my thoughts are free.

@ Joe
I have no problem with Google, I just don’t like the flavor of monopolists and that’s where Google is going. And just how boring would this post have been had I recommended Google for everything, when great alternatives (that – by the way – do allow to export files) are available?

I put everything into Google, and run backups, because unlike other providers, Google lets you take your data and export it. So many cloud services take your data and hold you hostage once you try to get it out.

GigaOM= get real and stop telling us what to do with our internets.

4 Ways to run your Favorite Web App from the Desktop

Three arguments against.

One is that online applications at this time are not as functional, or at least as convenient as their desktop equivalents. Perhaps. This is only a practical argument.

The second critic is that of reliability. What happens to data when if the Cloud vanishes? Well, backups as it is mentioned here. The idea is backup, wherever be the originals, on the Cloud or on the desktop. Ok!

Last, and that is my feeling more than my truth, the idea of confidentiality. I am myself somewhere between paranoia and lucidity, at least concerning privacy, mine and that of my documents. When Gmail reads my mails to deliver corresponding advertisements, I ask myself if my paranoia is not lucidity ; when I wonder what may be done of a company’s documents comfortably lying on a Cloud, I do admit wondering if that lucidity is not closer to paranoia. Still, whatever it be, I am not, how to say, confident. But, are my doubts not related to the uncertainty of a new computing dimension yet to fully expand in coming times, where we would not more worry of our documents being looked at than we do nowadays of our phone calls being listened ? No idea.

To conclude, I wish that whatever arises, it be true progress and not a logical continuation on a wrong path. Not only do I ignore what tomorrow will be, I moreover ignore what it should be.