There are ways around that. You could set up your own URL-shortening service. But at some point, the Internet stops working (in the social sense) if people can't depend on shared services.
SmugMug actually has a service that's similar to what you're talking about - they let you use your own Amazon S3 account as secure backup for your photos and other files with their app as a front end. So you "own" the disk but you're still participating in their online service.
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SmugMug actually has a service that's similar to what you're talking about - they let you use your own Amazon S3 account as secure backup for your photos and other files with their app as a front end. So you "own" the disk but you're still participating in their online service.