I'm totally with you on part of your argument: this bit about my important data being safer from random destruction when it is off-site on someone else's servers. And I do really trust those servers, and the engineers who run them. What I'm still worried about is the continued existence of the companies that own and run those servers. Companies like Google have only been around for a few years, and although they're doing really well right now, I'm still not entirely convinced they won't disappear in a puff of smoke if the economy takes another nose-dive.

Okay, maybe Google is a poor example, as they are bigger than most of the IPO-chasing startups were during the bubble. Maybe I'd trust my data to Google. But I would have a hard time handing over my primary working data to a smaller company, like Ludicorp/Flickr (before Yahoo bought them), or Six Apart.

What I'd like to see is some kind of "data re-insurance", in much the same way as other kinds of re-insurance work. Except instead of a (government-mandated or otherwise) financial guarantee or bond to back it, the data itself could be redistributed over a wider network of redundant servers. I'm not talking about redundant backup in the sense of having multiple data centers in case one of them burns down to the ground. In the case of an Enron-style corporate meltdown, I would like to know that my data was retrievable even if all of a company's data centers were suddenly shut down and stripped for parts.

Actually, I suppose I'm talking about some kind of P2P secure data storage and mirroring app, aren't I?

(One google later...)

Here we go: Peerio (http://www.peerio.com/testdrive/)

Interesting.