The problem with a lot of these applications today is that they work with the kind of information you want might want immediate access to from many devices. Tha

The problem with a lot of these applications today is that they work with the kind of information you want might want immediate access to from many devices. That means cloud-hosted options have a compelling advantage in convenience, which for many users will inevitably outweigh any security and privacy concerns. I would love for the FOSS community to come up with a simple, SOHO-friendly server/appliance to act as the central repository for information like messages and calendars and be accessible to all devices on the local network (or via VPN from outside). Then we could have some competition for favourable UIs without every application having to reinvent the wheel for all the back end protocols and formats. Sadly the experience of applications like Thunderbird suggests there isn't currently a critical mass of interest in working that way and most of the market is willing to tolerate the downsides of the cloud applications in exchange for better UIs and more convenience.