That's an interesting angle that I don't know enough about. For example, do the laws governing SaaS data provision to law enforcement also apply to data centers

That's an interesting angle that I don't know enough about. For example, do the laws governing SaaS data provision to law enforcement also apply to data centers? If they do, then you're giving up some privacy from the gov't for the convenience of outsourcing server management. I guess what's interesting about your idea is that it presents control as a continuum as opposed to a binary. There are varying degrees of control/convenience possible, but most of the current options are heavily weighted away from user control. Also, I don't think this thread is really about the cheese-moving/silent-upgrade phenomenon so much as data and identity ownership.