I pay for some services from Google, presumably because you can't make enough ad money from free storage. Shouldn't I have the option to pay for secure storage and communication?
As for trust, there is no way you can trust cloud storage. You have to assume it's hostile, or that your data is crossing hostile territory to or from. The security model has to avoid trust, which is what I described: signed keys in a Web of trust, no CAs, and no closed-source clients.
Storage is a little different since there are some things you can reveal about files while keeping them private (filetype, size, last modified time) which are relevant to providers. Email is much more difficult, with the exception of the sender and the time there is very little information that can be provided from an encrypted email. That makes it harder to provide a feature-heavy client. You of course have the option for using something more light weight; Gmail does not have that option, it would be a completely different product and business model.
Using web of trust signed keys is all well and good for techies. How would Google possibly set that up for average folks in a way that they themselves could not circumvent? I certainly could not see my parents working with key pairs unless the vast majority of the work was done automatically.
If you had to compose your own email headers only "techies" could do it. There is nothing about secure communication that is harder, and their are examples of simple, secure systems.
Notes implemented secure messaging (except for that key escrow thing) that was as easy to use as any email client. Skype implemented ephemeral keys for real time communication that was VERY simple to use.
There is no excuse, and it will take less time than a lawsuit to provide customers with NSA-proof products.
As for trust, there is no way you can trust cloud storage. You have to assume it's hostile, or that your data is crossing hostile territory to or from. The security model has to avoid trust, which is what I described: signed keys in a Web of trust, no CAs, and no closed-source clients.