That Amazon serves in two other countries within Europe—France and Germany, besides the uk—was lost on me until recently. (No excuses for failing to notice Amazon.com’s footer.) While prices of new books weren’t any different, I found it interesting to know that a range of choices among used ones did exist. And by simply comparing prices from the list of used books across three domains (Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, and Amazon.fr), I was able to save €20.-.

I suppose the minor annoyance of not being able to read French naturally¹ was worth the saving.

1. I just translated the page via Google Translate.

One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control. It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenceless [sic]. You’re putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.

— Richard M. Stallman

I’m trying to make sense of what he’s trying to say, while sweeping aside the gross generalization part. But first, a basic question: Didn’t “cloud” computing go live the moment networks came on? And aren’t web applications a result of manifestations, and implementations of some of those TCP/IP protocols that we started using as elements of the network, the internet, and later the web? And if you consider network a vital part of today’s computing, can you really do without it anymore?

For what it is worth, there may be a number of web applications that do not provide data-freedom, have no APIs, provide no support or connectivity via third party applications, and, provide no peek inside the code. But putting Gmail in the same bracket, in my humble opinion, is particularly a poor example. In fact Gmail’s induction into the web was remarkable, as it was understated.

Look at the way it tackled the email problem head-on. With its invite-only system during its initial year, Gmail developed a circle of trust—the good apples. When it had enough number of good apples, and had gained enough intelligence about Spam, it opened the system to everyone. This unique and participative ecosystem of good apples combined with Google’s collective intelligence is what gives Gmail an edge, and makes it a satisfying email service for the end-user, while silently killing Spam.

Could you have such an ecosystem developed openly to tackle unique problems that dog the internet today? In theory, yes. The answer may just lie in distributed transient networks. But earning trust is hard, because trust needs a recognizable face. That’s how we humans are wired. So until we begin accepting decentralized nodes into our circles of social trust, we need a credible entity to take this mantle. Today Google offers that credible face. There are others too. Take for example, Automattic, which provides comment spam protection via its amazing closed source service, Akismet. These services do more good than they’re often credited with—when you weigh in benefits of a community filter versus code open to scrutiny.

In the end, it is about preservation of your data, not necessarily software—no matter which way it was created, modified, transmitted, or received. I would be really wary to use a web application service that does not offer me a way to back my stuff up without data loss.

If our data retains its fidelity on those closed web applications, be available to us whenever we want them be exported to another application or a service, then I reckon most of us probably wouldn’t have a problem with cloud computing.

And we haven’t even discussed the mobile angle yet. Any takers?