Rands, I am amazed that you've never recieved IM spam.

Anyhow, there is one more problem when we solve the two you've mentioned. 'Lock-in'. With my data sitting on someone else's servers, they have to understand it is MY data, and they aren't entitled to keep me from it. If someone bumps up the subscription price, and I want to leave b/c of it. I need my data, and it has to be given to me in a format such that I can move it to a competitor.

Granted, it doesn't make much sense for any company to do that. Open file formats and standards are very much needed.