A consultant has ten years of project reports in cloud storage, email with client attachments, a contact list and a chatbot connected to both. Losing access to one account could disrupt much more than AI.
The commercial competition is not simply about whose model gives the best answer. Large providers also compete to host the files, email, calendars, searches and workflows around it. Each extra dependency makes moving harder. Provider policies differ, so it would be inaccurate to claim every service trains on everything you upload.
Try an inventory. Where are the original project documents stored? Can you export them in standard formats? Can you download your email, including attachments, and read it without the original provider? If an assistant has mailbox access, does it need the whole mailbox or only selected messages?
A practical alternative is to keep a working archive on storage you control, such as an encrypted local drive or network-attached storage (NAS), with a tested backup elsewhere. A professional email address on your own domain makes it easier to change email hosts. Standard file formats make it easier to change document software.
Cloud services can still be useful for public research and general drafting. For confidential client work, we strongly favour local processing, subject to appropriate security and backup arrangements.
Planetary.Blue helps members examine these choices, including storage, secure email and migration plans. Digital independence does not require replacing every service at once; it requires knowing what you can recover and move.
