It wasn't just stuff he backed up on google drive that he lost. You can lose your email account, possibly locking you out of any internet service that uses email as authentication, as well as any important emails. You can lose documents you made on google drive itself that you haven't yet downloaded. He lost his calendar, which I don't even know if you can backup. He also mentioned his blog and phone service and contacts.
The point is it's not just data that is lost and of what is, not everything is easily backed up on local storage.
