I'm a member and I've never contributed a piece of code.

I do a bit of bug triaging and reporting on Launchpad. I work with the Loco here and people locally to get involved and educated in free software using Ubuntu.

If you ask me the membership doesn't do much overall. The major reason I went for it was to get the @ubuntu.com email address that l think helps on the advocacy front when I give someone my business card. Makes it seem more legit in some way.

Wow, a credit card company changing the rules in the middle of the game.

How Shocking!

this raises questions (again) about cloud computing, as well as Google's eternal beta-status for a lot of their services.

What do you mean it raises questions again? Did the questions get put down between the last time a flaw was found in 'the cloud' or Google's beta services and this time?

The questions are the same. The answers are the same. If you're not happy with it don't participate in it.