In principle they don’t, but in practice they do.<p>There is no fundamental technical reason we can’t have infrastructure and platforms that are as secure as Google, Apple, and Amazon provide.<p>However this is in practice an unsolved problem. The software doesn’t exist to replace what these organizations do without the concentrated expertise they bring to bear.<p>It’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise, and the comparison with AT&T is bordering on ridiculous. You might as well talk about the problems with the monopoly on steam engines at this point.
I would argue that they don't serve National Security, they threaten it. These cloud providers are selling the government on being their secret keepers, which secures them against regulation.