Btw. Lotus Notes did exactly this already in the 80s - apps based on local database replicas. CouchDB comes from an ex Lotus dev (Damian Katz) who, inspired by this, created a peer to peer database with similar functionality. Thus I think it would still be a good fit for this kind of local first application.
The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?
131–140 of 215 posts
Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?
#132Honestly, I don't really care for software that is "local" to the machine as its primary path. What I like is software that provides a self-hostable backend that is as close to identical as the cloud-hosted backend as possible. Allow me to to configure things to point to my local network (or better yet use SRV records to discover it) so I can still use the mobile app, desktop app, and browser app with live collab and sync between them, but without relying on your cloud service. This isn't completely trivial to do, but it's also not that hard either, as long as you design your software architecture for the backend to be reliant on operating your own services in the cloud on dumb IaaS instead of relying on PaaS components.
It's one of the reasons I really like certain companies because it makes it possible for me to still provide my family the ease of use that comes with centrally managed services and mobile apps without the privacy and cost tradeoffs of abandoning control to the cloud. Something like OwnCloud but for everything would be really fantastic.
Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?
#133I worked on a local first version of an app I sell. I use CouchDB to store user data so it was pretty easy to implement because CouchDB will sync a local CouchDB to the Cloud based CouchDB as soon as any changes are made.
That app is now 20 years old and over those years I've had users who quit using it call me years later to ask if I could give them access to their expired account or a copy of all their data.
CouchDB is easy to install and easy for users to configure for that purpose so I explained the benefits and provided simple step by step instructions.
I explained how this would make the app faster for them, provide a local backup of their data, and that it was possible our Cloud based CouchDB could be inaccessible for a variety of reasons beyond our control but their local CouchDB would be there for them and it would sync up any changes with the Cloud based CouchDB as soon as it was back online.
I also explained how this gave them a way to use the app for free after their yearly subscription expired, so I assumed most of the users would jump at the chance to set up the local first version of the app.
Not one of the app's users wanted to do that. They really could not have cared any less.
I still use it for my own account so it wasn't a complete waste of time but I was, and still am, a bit amazed that users didn't grasp the value in that.
Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?
#134People that dont like the cloud are generally engineers who were left behind by the paradigm shift. They want development to go back to what they spent a decade learning. And so they complain about complexity or out of control cost. The truth is, they arent effective engineers with the cloud because they havent learned it in depth. It is clearly 100x better than on premise, and the boom in tech is partially from prod…
The article (and the local-first software) has nothing to do with cloud vs. on-prem. It's about the priorities in developing and running/using your applications: "The word “local” in the name refers to your personal computer. “First” means your computer is prioritized over “someone else’s.”". Local-first apps can still use cloud resources for synchronization or for simplifying their initial configuration, but it's not a focal and critical point of the design and only serves as one of the nodes and can be made optional. You can still get all the benefits of being cloud-enabled, but you're also getting all the benefits of working without any cloud involvement at the cost of adding synchronization and conflict-resolution mechanisms.
Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?
#135Anyone 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…
Read this first: https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/
> 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.
Local first is focused on end consumer experiences and is orthogonal to the on-prem vs cloud argument; ideally there wouldn't even be a server. @pvh and i&s team have done a great job threading the needle in articulating the ideology. At a high level it is advocating for products that can provide the benefits of the cloud without being locked on or turning your phone into a paper weight if it doesn't have internet access.
Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do force it. The force your non technical CEO and your non technical customers to value these stupid cloud servers far too highly. This forces many to embrace cloud tech purely for marketing reasons.
Companies embrace cloud tech because it turns large capital budgets into operating budgets, and prevents dental implant companies or soda distributors from having to figure out how to hire competent sysadmins.
Replace all your competent sysadmins with even more expensive cloud architects!
Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what is the operating margin of the products your group produces? What was it prior to shifting everything to the cloud? If you can't answer those questions, you may be architecting yourself out of a job. I watched more than one company that was operating on razor-thin margins, depreciating hardware over a decade, move to the cloud and promptly bankrupt themselves. If you're in a business where you've got an addi…
We have those numbers. We reduced our costs by over 70%. We got the project approved claiming we'd reduce costs by 30%. Obviously YMMV and the savings are going to be dependent on each project, but we've had enough solutions that we've had on-prem that we've shifted to AWS and show substantial cost savings that the business is comfortable with our taking new projects and just starting out in AWS.
I'm sorry, there's simply no world in which switching to the cloud, and serverless to boot, results in a 70% cost reduction unless you so grossly over-provisioned your on-prem infrastructure that whoever architected it should no longer be employed. Cloud infrastructure is more expensive across the board, full stop. Unless you're using hollywood math to claim millions in "efficiency gains" I don't buy it.
Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup. Most complaints about the cloud are people who dont understand how to use it. They have been left behind and havent reskilled. They call it "too complex". In reality, using AWS is 10000x better than some custom infrastructure.
You have to be able to beat the cloud locally to make doing so make sense. AWS et al. set the bar and it’s difficult to beat them with your local infrastructure.
If the thing you are trying to do isn't very complex then beating Cloud is not that difficult. Many small companies just don't need it and moving to it adds cost and complexity for what?
Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?
#139I'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"
Yonz here, I run the community and can be blamed for the 20+ swipes at the discord choice. We started in February 2023, and it has been amazing to see the now ~1k developers coming together and building awesome collaborations like Tinybase + Cr-sqlite.
Yes, we need a community platform aligned with our mission, but it is already hard enough to get people together. Before the website or the discord, it was just a bunch of people following each other on Twitter and a few disparate talks. Starting from there and asking new joiners to set up a new platform adds prohibitive friction. 'There is a platform for that is not enough'; we need most interested folks to also be on it.
A matrix bridge makes perfect sense, but I haven't had the time to set it up.
Re: The cloud is a prison. can the local-first software movement set us free?
#140i ran a hosting company. a successful one that made money for years. it made me millions of dollars. i knew it was time to sell when prospective customers literally couldn't believe our prices. they thought we were full of shit, and accused us of being amateurs, fly-by-night scammers. and our prices weren't low - they just weren't insanely inflated like public cloud. we didn't deliberately try to undercut anyone on o…
Sounds like customers were saying "the price seem suspicious", but what they were really thinking (and maybe they didn't even realize it themselves) is "I don't trust this company because it isn't one of the 5 that runs everything else in my life".