This is a profoundly US-centric perspective. Consider Microsoft's efforts to isolate data in Irish servers from US jurisdiction. US providers have already lost substantial global business since Snowden's releases. If mandated lawful access could short circuit jurisdictional disputes, US providers would arguably lose far more global business.
That is a very important point from the other side too. Clearly other governments are not going to accept the US FBI having a world-wide backdoor into the communications of their citizens. But if all the "criminals" have to do is buy their phones in Mexico (or wherever) then what are we even talking about?
consider guidance from new zealand's Health Information Governance Expert Advisory Group (HIGEAG) [0]:
> Unless an exemption is granted by the National Health IT Board, all personal health information held in an identifiable form and associated clinical or administrative data must be fully domiciled in New Zealand.
i get that this is a tongue-in-cheek comment, and appreciate your sense of humor, but it also saddens/frightens me to think this could become the prevailing sentiment in the years to come.
i grew up believing the internet was a great equalizer, capable of providing opportunity to people from across the globe, irrespective of nationality, race, creed, etc.
but now i fear the actions of certain nation states could produce -- for lack of a better term -- a fervent "digital xenophobia" that causes people to delineate and enforce boundaries on the net mirroring real world geopolitical borders maintained by a powerful minority.
that's not the kind of future i'd like to see.
for example, might people one day need a digital passport to send and receive data internationally? and might those data be subject to customs inspection before/after receipt?
today these may seem like parts of a cyberpunk b-movie plot, but it's not inconceivable that legislators would push for similar measures in the future if, for example, "national security interests" hung in the balance and they had the power to push such measures through.
