>> people should use open tools, running on devices they own, storing things on some storage they own and control. I agree with your sentiment that "we shouldn

>> people should use open tools, running on devices they own, storing things on some storage they own and control. I agree with your sentiment that "we shouldn't let others control our stuff." However, that doesn't mean you have to completely forego the advantages of cloud services. For example, you can encrypt your data before backing it up to a storage providers. You haven't lost any freedom there; the worst case scenario is that they don't provide the reliability you paid them to provide. You can mitigate that risk by using more than one provider.