Hi,
As somebody who just lost a bunch of data due to faulty backup disks, I for one welcome this.
I've yet to lose data stored on Google's cloud *touch wood*...lol.
Having data in the cloud, as well as cached/accessible locally seems like the best option. And to those talking about going underground on a train, I'm fairly sure Google's accounted for that - either through Gears, HTML5 Local Storage, or another local caching mechanism. I have a Google Nexus One, when I'm underground, I can still access all my email (that's been synced), my contacts, my calendar etc.
And having all my contacts synced online, along with all my Google Talk logs, is *awesome*. I'm a bit anal-retentive when it comes to storing things, so knowing that it's all stored, and available, and won't get lost due to filesystem corruption or something equally idiotic is good news to me. And look, worst come to worst, I lose my phone (hopefully not...lol) I'll get another, login to my Google Account, and voila, everything is synced again.
And people seem to over-value their privacy, at least to corporations. Seriously, most of you are pathetically mundane. I for one am not so insecure that I can't admit I am too. I mean, jeez, trawling through my personal emails you get...err...a bunch of emails between me and mates talking about work, me arranging lunch with my parents, and me buying stuff on eBay. Big whoop de doo. I'm happy to admit I'm a fairly boring individual, and I'm sure statistically I just fade into the background. If I was the Pope, or Jason Bourne, or I was trying to overthrow the Australian government, I suppose I might think differently. But as it is, I'm just another random guy. I doubt anybody at Google really cares, except to display targeted advertising.
The government spying on me, yeah, I have issues on that. Serious issues. A teacher at uni. Absolutely. A colleague, sure. People I know IRL, yeah. Heck, if this was Sony even, I'd have issues, seeing as they're a bunch of immoral corporates, who have no qualms about installing malware on consumer's PCs (I bought into MiniDisc ok...lol, I have a right to be bitter). But some analytical algorithm, trying to figure out which ads I'll click on? Pftt, who cares.
Google has tried to hide what they do - they display targeted ads. It's not like they've every tried to cover that fact up, nor have they been really been caught out on a privacy breach. (I'm going to discount the technical incompetent idiots who don't understand what unencrypted wireless communication is, or who can't be bothered to read what they're clicking on before they click it, a la Buzz).
They also freely list all the data they store on you:
https://www.google.com/dashboard
And they also don't try to lock you in to their system - they provide open exports from most of their systems.
http://www.dataliberation.org/
I find that really awesome, and a refreshing change from every other corporation that tries to lock you in, hand over foot. It also speaks volumes about their confience - they're confident enough in the technical superiority of their solutison, that they dont' ened to resort to lock-in to try to desperately cling onto their customers.
Cheers,
Victor