As amirmc said, I think the move towards a decentralized system, as the Internet itself operates, can be a viable solution to the cloud problem. What we see to

As amirmc said, I think the move towards a decentralized system, as the Internet itself operates, can be a viable solution to the cloud problem. What we see today is accumulation of great power and influence in the hands of a few Big Tech companies. Even without cooperation with NSA, such imbalance is dangerous. It's like a reverse trend from personal computing back to mainframe era, where users are expected to plug into the Source, conduct their affairs, and then unplug, leaving all data in the central repository, looked after by someone else. If we could devise a set of standard protocols for cloud communication (like we have for emails), it would give us an opportunity to shift control from centralized proprietary platforms back to users. Any party could then implement the protocol and any user would be free to choose how to access their data, where to store, and who to communicate, as long as they're on the Internet.