I disagree that this idea is incompatible with this usage profile. You could have your personal computer do alert processing on the box itself, and either setu

I disagree that this idea is incompatible with this usage profile. You could have your personal computer do alert processing on the box itself, and either setup a system of unencrypted alert messages, or have it ping you every once in a while. The main idea here is to only allow your personal information off of your own computer in an encrypted form. This seems like a pretty good place to aim for in the future. The problem isn't lock-in as much as it is privacy. It is better for consumers for all of their private data to be private as they use the internet, instead of having the rely on trusting someone else with the data. Part of the concern is lockin - as in what happens if the service changes their policies or disappears. But this is not the whole picture