Sorry about not posting more, but to be honest I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable at storing my own private thoughts and public musings on the hard drive of someone I don't know, or more importantly,
trust. Trust, some sort of mutual respect, is necessary for to share one's data. And yet, how can you trust someone like Google (or Yahoo!) who is clearly going to be data-mining your data for every cent it's worth. They only reason they give you space for free is so that they own your data and can do whatever they want with it. So, can we estabished a decentralized Web 2.0 where data is more open and free, and where it can be trusted? I think we can. It's called the "Semantic Web" - and the Semantic Web, in combination with decentralized "microformats" really is the way to go once all these Web 2.0 companies finally go the way of the dinosaurs.
It's not just applications that are valuable, it's data. I just wish the Free Software Foundation had some more forward thinking about this. I remember asking Richard Stallman himself about it when I set up his talk in Edinburgh, but he seemed genuinely not interested in the Web. Which is sad, because the times, they are a changing. And that includes for free software.
