For me, it's not the threat of hacking that gives me pause. It's the threat of a company going out of business and shutting down their servers without warning.
Even knowing that, I still keep a ton of critical information in my GMail. I depend on GMail more than anyone reasonably should.
But that's why you have to look for services that a) look like they'll be around a while, and b) let you get your data out. Google is one of the best companies on the internet in both regards. They're clearly not going anywhere, and when it comes to point b, they even have an
internal group dedicated to the idea.
GMail, of all the services they have, is probably the easiest to get the data in and out. You can simply access it with a POP3 email client and download everything, or connect with IMAP and drag and drop all your email over, and you can export your contacts.
For me, the promise of the cloud is that it's everywhere. My data isn't tied to one computer and doesn't depend on one device in any way. I can access the information from any machine. The first time, in 2005, when I started an email at work and finished it at home, I was hooked. I don't need a desktop client and more importantly I don't
want one in the least.
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