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Syncthing solves a large part of syncing data between devices using your own VPS, server(s), etc. If your VPS provider goes out of business, you can then just fire up a new VPS and hook it back up to your local machine(s).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I always think data freedom is more important than software freedom. For example it matters less that MS Word is not free as in freedom when you can open the file in something that is.
And cloud SaaS are enemies of both! After all, in order to have data freedom, you need to have something to open in that other program, and cloud solutions do their best to not give you proper open/save file (and even if there's an export function, and even if everything is actually included in the export, it often isn't followed by import function that could read that export). For this reason, I avoid using cloud Sa…
any marginally successful "local-first" app is going to go and raise $10m in vc, switch to software as a service, and add an enterprise mode that requires user permissions and data access to be managed on the server
Sure, any one company probably will - but there’s a whole market. As soon as that one company abandons the local-first model, a gap opens, which will (usually, eventually) be filled by a new company offering local-first until that new company does the same. As long as the companies don’t band together and agree to end it, there should be a company offering that model somewhere somehow.
Solving this problem isn't about being local-first. It's about being local-last. You have to be able to make more money by selling a software license than you make by selling equity and chasing user acquisition and retention.
Then we'll see people waking up to the fact that all this proprietary data is a liability and subscriptions are golden handcuffs and people will finally get back to making real software again
https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing Syncthing solves a large part of syncing data between devices using your own VPS, server(s), etc. If your VPS provider goes out of business, you can then just fire up a new VPS and hook it back up to your local machine(s).
Not related to the actual content, but may I please request you to increase the contrast on your website. Grey on grey is very hard to read.
Martin Kleppmann is a major inspiration for our startup, Ditto. We take the local-first concept and p2p to the next level with CRDTs and replication. But what we really do is leverage things like AWDL, mDNS, and or Bluetooth low energy to sync mobile databases instances with each other even without internet connectivity. www.ditto.live Check it out in action! https://youtu.be/1P2bKEJjdec https://youtu.be/ITUrk_rjnvo…
The blog post doesn't mention this, so I thought I'd point this out. One of the paper's authors is Martin Kleppmann, who wrote the very good https://dataintensive.net/ book.
- file formats that won’t lock you in or are even openly hackable (allows you to automate things)
- no clouds that will break the software once it is gone
- local storage with custom syncing or backup options
- strictly no weird data collection or “We own the rights to your data”-Type of terms
So if I get the slightest feeling of a lock in or unnecessary data collection you are scaring me away, because mentally I would then already look at the time after you decide to scrap your cloud or abandon your file formats. The data collection bit shows me your users aren’t front and center but something else is which makes your product even less of a good choice.
If your product runs on the web, allowing for self-hosted solutions is also a big plus.