>We have a world system; it's called the internet.

The Internet is made up of millions (perhaps billions) of discrete entities. It's impossible to control all of the data which exists today as it is across the network ... which is why everybody's pushing for consolidation.

>Whether the data is "in the cloud" or "in the datacenter" is irrelevant
>to security; but security is relevant to both.

Having business software running in large datacenters, on virtualized CPUs able to be load-shifted-while-running from one machine to another, from one datacenter to another, from one country to another, removes them from our direct control. We won't even know where our machine is running, just that it is or is not running ... somewhere.

Having all of our software and data on remote machines outside of our control means they can be copied or monitored by anyone with access to the datacenter at any time. This is much harder (impossible) to do when there are millions of discrete servers running in millions of separate physical locations. But when you begin consolidating (which will at that time make so much sense because of the greater security it will offer, the cheaper cost, the powerful developer tools, the cloud-anywhere sales pitch) then you lose control.

It is far better to have cloud solutions running discretely on millions of separate server centers than it is to have anything consolidated into giant server farms. Having everything in one place makes it not only easier for evil intentions to be realized, but it makes it tempting beyond words. It is actually the reason they are offering these services. It has very little to do with money and fee-for-service.

Truly baffling why people don't see this.