I don't agree. The cloud provider is a company only existing for the sake of generating revenue for the share-holders of this company. The government is a (usually) democratically elected institution. That is why I prefer to trust governments.

The advantage of a cloud provider is that you can unilaterally sever the relationship without serious penalty.

What I tried to say is: we need the government to regulate the internet in terms of providing the right laws so users actually can take action against providers misusing their data. Just turning away from the provider is not the solution (from my point of view).

You can? Migrate everything from Google to Apple. Then check back in 5 years and see if it's as painless.

That was one of the author's points. We're becoming a culture where you pretty much buy into one provider or another provider. One of his assumptions was that it's only going to get more locked in and more difficult to switch. His conclusions were thinking about the future based on those assumptions.

I never said painless. However Apple doesn't have (yet) the power to imprison or execute anti-Apple subversives.

Vive la résistance!

Only if the government provides the right law...

I agree completely! Though I'm not AT ALL trustful of companies, they simply don't have the power that governments do. It's a heck of a lot easier to switch the company that hosts your email than it is to switch governments.