Cloud computing good? or Bad?

Do you know what the latest buzz called "Cloud Computing" is really all about?  Let me simplify it,  Your computer is connected to the internet on the internet is your email and all the programs you use like word processing and spread sheets.  Nothing is on your computer anymore except maybe some loose operating system.  Just enough for you to get connected.
Every month you pay a subscription fee to use your stuff,  to read your documents,  to view your bank account and confidential documents.  Nothing is on your computer it's all on some computer someplace else.  If you don't pay the fee your stuff will be deleted after a certain amount of time.  No amount of begging will get it back.  No they won't give it to you unless you pay the ransom a/k/a subscription fee.  If they loose your data they are not responsible,  it says so in the contract.  While your lawyer tries to sort this your going out of business because you can't access your accounts, vendor files, and customer database.

But you have the savvy sales rep sitting in your office ready to take you out to a nice steak diner.  He/She is going to convince you that the "Cloud" is the only way to go, it's going to save you tons of money.  How could you not be using the latest and greatest invention since sliced bread. 
Are you ready to outsource your IT department to the Philippines?   

As for Hacking?  the cloud is one stop shopping for hackers.  Once they are on a system with cloud services they have full run of all the companies.  Even your competitors.  Yes don't forget your competitors data and business could end up on the same servers as you. 

IT clouds are NOT nice fluffy things,  they are cold hard servers that someone else owns and charges you a monthly fee to access your own data.  Don't pay and your data goes away.  What's it good for?  Online backups!  and only if encrypted.  Treat your nerds with respect, they can save your business or treat them like chattel and they could let it burn to the ground and just say -
 "Oops sorry about that dude the cloud blew away!"