> Similarly, I use Gmail for my e-mail, but I control the MX records. So if I get kicked off for whatever reason, I can be back up and running in no time.

I do the same, and also back up my email regularly with getmail so that it will be easy to transfer, either if Google arbitrarily locks my account, or if they just shut down Gmail for good.

I wish there was a good solution to similarly back up Google Photos -- only partial metadata is exposed via the API.