Sorry, my argument could have been made more clearly. I was talking about two different topics, .mac and syncing of iDevices with computers, and I didn't do a good job of separating them.

For .Mac, the fact that the service is paid and not ad-supported means that I don't have the awkward situation of my vendor being incentivized to sift through all my information with a fine comb in order to sell me their partners' products.

For syncing of iDevices, the fact that the data goes directly from the device to my computer is much more acceptable than having to make everything pass through Google's servers.

I'm much more comfortable with both of these situations than their equivalents on Google's platform.