Good post.

It's clear that the data portability model is limited, but I would even go beyond hosting portability to service portability, and I would separate the hosting company from the value-added service provider.

First, the hosting model still leaves you at the mercy of the host if/when you decide to move... you still have to update your address at all of the service providers who might access the services of your hosting company. A more robust model would provide service portability through service discovery. Service providers don't need to know where it the data is hosted, but rather where they can find the current host. That gives you a layer of indirection that lets you move your hosting company without needing to remember which service providers are currently relying on that host.

Second, you suggest that the hosting company's job is to perform actions on your data.

Why is that?

My DNS host doesn't perform functions on my DNS. Nor do I expect my webhost to perform actions on my website, although I do like to have a range of services I can easily install and run (such as installing WordPress through Fantastico).

I would argue that there is an inherent conflict of interest in the hosting company providing value-added services, and that in fact, what we should do is design an architecture where hosting is functionally distinct from value-added services. Any authorized value-add service provider should be able to access your data services, which leads to a cleaner architecture where companies that happen to provide both hosting and value-add services can do so with clear contracts and authorization.

Finally, there's no real need to have all of my services at the same hosting company, just like my DNS, my website, and my email can all painlessly be hosted anywhere I like. As long as the services can be discovered, there's no reason to have any individual's services centralized, nor a need to centralize many individuals' data in one place.

The collaborative/co-op type negotiating strategy you suggest can easily be implemented by a value-add service provider, independent of the source of the data. Users simply join that co-op or buying group and point the co-op to their discovery service. Flash-mobs rejoice.

All of which is to say, you are definitely going down the right path. More portability more better.

-j