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The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?

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Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?

#121

Post by ilc »

BSEdlMMldESB wrote: post #3

the cloud is a failure of the internet originally we were all going to be able to host our own stuff in our closets, the 'intelligence' goes in the edges. then the industrialists went full-cloud on this idea. and the 'intelligence' got concentrated in a few gigantic industrial warehouses. but it sure feels more orderly this way. why spread the load when you can focus it and centralize it?

Why not some of both?

... why does one exclude the other?

I used to host my own e-mail. I decided that I couldn't give it the time and effort it deserved, and moved myself and my users to a provider.

The best option is choice. Not forcing one or the other.

Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?

#122

Post by marcosdumay »

gottebp wrote: post #42

Before it was called "local first" it was known as "subsidiarity". Seeing the principle applied to food, politics, software is exciting to me. "Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority".[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…

Interesting that the word comes directly from the Catholic Church, because I don't think they ever allowed it to exist.

When you see it happen in society, it's almost always learned from a military group or earned by some popular revolt.

Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?

#123

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

taeric wrote: post #60

I have a hard time squaring the push of this, with the rise of the embedded VSCode in github to edit in your browser. Actually, really just the damned browser. It has been both a god send for software delivery and by far the biggest mistake/road block in building local software. I remember in college I commented that I used a web browser based email provider because it was easily accessible, and one of the old guard…

Is a physical media collection any more of a liability than a streaming service? If whoever you're paying wants to double their prices, throw in ads, pull your favourite series, replace your favourite book with one that's been "updated for modern audiences", ban you because they think your doorbell is racist, ban you because they automatically detected an infringing performance of 4'33" in your cloud storage or stop supporting your device because they want you to rent their own, they can say "We have altered the deal, pray we do not alter it any further." and there's nothing you can do.

Trusting your data or anything you care about to someone else's computer is the real liability.

Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?

#124

Post by ilc »

jeanlou wrote: post #76
ilc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because AWS is HIPAA compliant, doesn't mean what you do there is :). But at least it solves the basics.

That's just nitpicking

Not really.

So much of HIPAA is actually getting the administration right.

Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?

#125

Post by regularfry »

regularfry wrote: post #93
taylodl wrote: post #29

Anyone who's worked inside a large organization knows the cloud is the solution to be able to get things done and deliver value to the business. Why? On-prem solutions require I work with the infrastructure group, who wants to cookie-cutter me into their limited stable of infrastructure options; I have to work with the systems group, who gives me very limited options and configurations for the operating systems; the…

At my last org, the exec reaction to the cloud was to say we should build our own, AWS-compatible, in our own DC's. Yes, really.

Oh, one other thing: this was in 2019.

Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?

#126

Post by taeric »

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #123
taeric wrote: post #60

I have a hard time squaring the push of this, with the rise of the embedded VSCode in github to edit in your browser. Actually, really just the damned browser. It has been both a god send for software delivery and by far the biggest mistake/road block in building local software. I remember in college I commented that I used a web browser based email provider because it was easily accessible, and one of the old guard…

Is a physical media collection any more of a liability than a streaming service? If whoever you're paying wants to double their prices, throw in ads, pull your favourite series, replace your favourite book with one that's been "updated for modern audiences", ban you because they think your doorbell is racist, ban you because they automatically detected an infringing performance of 4'33" in your cloud storage or stop…

For different definitions of "liability?" Losing access to media sorta sucks, but is honestly not that big of a deal for the vast majority of it folks have.

Consider that the vast majority of consumed media forever has been radio and broadcast/cable. And until very recently, you either saw the show live, or you missed it. Really isn't much different and you don't typically feel a loss that you can't watch last year's show.

Same goes for newspapers or any other physical thing you can get delivered. I have some magazines that I do keep in good condition as they made me happy to have them on a book shelf. I cannot justify that in any way that doesn't ultimately lead to hoarding, though. I think these should be available and preserved, but I see little benefit in having everyone preserve their own movie collection.

To get sad on it, go look at any estate sale and see how many VHS tapes many older generations collected.

Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?

#127

Post by charcircuit »

theshrike79 wrote: post #67
piker wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your organisation is so inefficient that it’s easier to just engage a third party to syphon off any profitability?

I can literally right now, sitting here in my underwear, spin up 4 clustered servers in 3 different continents with a globally replicated object storage and a master + 2 slaves setup of SQL databases on each location. And all that for less than the price of _one_ competent sysadmin's monthly salary. How would you suggest a company would match that with local servers and sysadmins? One sysadmin per 8 hour shift = 3 pe…

If you want to be able to instantly spin up servers collocated you just need to have spare capacity. There is nothing that restricts you from delaying expanding your capacity until you need it. That is what slows you down.

Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?

#128

Post by yonz »

fsflover wrote: post #96
samwillis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are hosting monthly meet-ups - mini conferences - with video chat and presentations. Not local first solution to that yet.

https://matrix.org/blog/2023/02/09/finally-a-hybrid-conferen...

This is interesting, been putting off setting up a discord Matrix bridge but will have to tackle this.

Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?

#129

Post by pierat »

this_user wrote: post #46
samwillis wrote: post #2

I'm going all in on Local First, it addresses so many issues with the current "app" web. Better responsiveness from UI, working offline, privet data, lower server costs, just as a start. Somewhat counter to the article, I would argue that local first isn't about having "no cloud", it's "low cloud". So you could go P2P for sync, but you can also have a much more lightweight sync service on a central server. Both are v…

> Local First > "Join our Discord"

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ vibes.

Discord is easy, and it is a good jumping off ground before you get a Matrix server up and running.

Use what ya gotta to get shit done.

Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?

#130

Post by ChainOfFools »

this_user wrote: post #46
samwillis wrote: post #2

I'm going all in on Local First, it addresses so many issues with the current "app" web. Better responsiveness from UI, working offline, privet data, lower server costs, just as a start. Somewhat counter to the article, I would argue that local first isn't about having "no cloud", it's "low cloud". So you could go P2P for sync, but you can also have a much more lightweight sync service on a central server. Both are v…

> Local First > "Join our Discord"

Kind of like how the so-called decentralized development of the Bitcoin protocol all happens on GitHub and discussion takes place (primarily) over Slack. And the team collectively settled on the incredibly tone deaf (although, admittedly, accidentally honest) use of Bitcoin Core to refer to the project, there by making themselves the "Core" team.
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