[kmarc]

Same as with running water. Thankfully I don't have to dig my own well anymore, even worse: in some countries I'm not even allowed to, and I have to pay for the service!

This model is there for a very long time, and makes our lives much easier. And if it doesn't lock you in, is offered for quite cheap (we are talking about $3-5 per month, or even the free tier) I don't see the problem with it. As long as you have the freedom of choice (to switch vendors, or do it yourself), I don't see the problem.

[tialaramex]

Water supply is a natural monopoly which is pretty different straight away. The externalities are really nasty (say you extract water under your property, the water doesn't care about property lines so water will flow from other land and potentially cause subsidence, a big cost to somebody else) and water is actually part of a global cycle so while one person can get away with just taking their water from a well and dumping effluent into the lake if a million people do that a bunch of them are going to die.

And as a result of all this it's heavily regulated unlike printer ink.