[avh02]

Not agreeing with thread OP here, but I would certainly differentiate between "stealing" and "exploiting" (not in a security exploit sense). User data certainly gets exploited on _some_ SaaSs that would otherwise be unexploitable on your own stack.

I'm not saying this necessarily applies to compute engines or storage as a service or whatever, but something like gmail (SaaS) where your data is used to target ads at you could be considered exploiting your data. I would not put it beyond large companies to start considering doing the same on their storage-as-a-service offerings soon enough.

[Oletros]

The difference is that in the case of Gmail, monetisation is though ads and in the case of compute engine or storage the monetisation is through client payments.

If Google, Microsoft or other companies start to look at the data to exploit it hey will lose trust, the customers and the data.