I guess we will reach the level that we will be lazy to synchronize with our offline machines even when it is possible, the same happened when we moved from paper work to automated work, now we are lazy to print the documents we have as soft-copies, and so will be the situation with the web based copy I believe.

Of course, it’s great to have all software accessable via the Internet, but maybe if we had someway to sync online/offline data it would be more appealing and trustworthy.

Regarding the privacy issue, there were many solutions out there, sometimes it’s the privacy statements and some other times it’s the reputation of the company itself.

At the end it’s a matter of how much do we trust those companies, and how much are these companies able to maintain such a credibility, this is something hard on companies to establish and maintain otherwise they can’t get a decent place in the market.

We can say that it is related also to the user limits in trusting others, and how much is he/she obsessed about the idea of privacy, but finally the fact is: you have to risk some of your privacy for great benefits.

I’d have to agree with you about the negatives of webification. Except for the part about data being in someone elses control. As long as you don’t pick a fly by night company, I think it is pretty safe to assume that the company has your best interests at heart.

As to having everything only available with an internet connection — YES. That is a problem. I think some companies solve this by creating ways to export your data, and others by having a light application that syncs with the web site data. But it’s a problem.

I think the group collaboration benefits outweigh these downfalls however.