I get some of the article's points, but I don't buy his solutions.
Quite frankly, I trust Gmail to keep my mail safe and secure more than I trust either myself, my friends or some NGO or other non-profit. I'd be lying to myself to think that I could do a better job of keeping a mail server secure, and I trust other small organizations even less. While I understand why the privacy issues make people uncomfortable, from a reliability perspective, Gmail is far and away the best option. So I can easily see why people might be willing to pay the privacy price in order to get better service.
Quite frankly, I trust Gmail to keep my mail safe and secure more than I trust either myself, my friends or some NGO or other non-profit. I'd be lying to myself to think that I could do a better job of keeping a mail server secure, and I trust other small organizations even less. While I understand why the privacy issues make people uncomfortable, from a reliability perspective, Gmail is far and away the best option. So I can easily see why people might be willing to pay the privacy price in order to get better service.