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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?

#191

Post by mixmastamyk »

oblib wrote: post #133

I 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. CouchD…

Seems like one problem is that you didn’t set it up automatically and expected them to do it on their own. Regular folks aren’t going to do that kind of thing without pressing need.

Harder when it’s primarily a web app, but customers can be convinced to try mobile/desktop apps at times. Maybe give a discount?

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

#192

Post by happymellon »

akho wrote: post #27
shafyy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CleanShot X for Mac is a great example of this. It's basically a screenshotting and screen recording tool that you install. But you can also tell it to upload your images and videos to their cloud and get a link to share them with your friends or coworkers (especially helpful for screencasts for example).

Why not dropbox or whatever place you use to share files normally? a screenshot program does not need a cloud.

Since we are talking about local first, what about Gokapi?

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

#193

Post by akho »

happymellon wrote: post #192
akho wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not dropbox or whatever place you use to share files normally? a screenshot program does not need a cloud.

Since we are talking about local first, what about Gokapi?

Gokapi requires an externally-visible IP. It can be self-hosted, but is hardly local-first.

Also, why not nginx and a `~/Public` folder if we have an IP.

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

#194

Post by theshrike79 »

taylodl wrote: post #101
imchillyb wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only 'shitty ideas' in business are those that cost the business and shareholders money. Cloud computing can either be a necessity for a business, or a money-hole from which is derived little to no benefit to the company. Most small businesses could thrive with a -local- small dedicated server/workstation, and locally managed network resources.

Most small businesses should be focused on their business, and not their IT.

Exactly, this is why companies shouldn't host their own email either.

And, as a rule, gaming companies shouldn't build their own engines either. If you have the skills to do that, start selling the engine instead of the games you make with it. It's a much better business.

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

#195

Post by NikkiA »

robertlagrant wrote: post #75
akho wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not dropbox or whatever place you use to share files normally? a screenshot program does not need a cloud.

Dropbox would do well to make a decent screenshot tool and make it share dropbox links.

Once-upon-a-time dropbox had a built in screenshot tool that could upload to your public directory.

It was always a pain because I was forever having to determine which of onedrive or dropbox had taken print screen handling away from my preferred screenshot tool (at the time, greenshot, now ShareX)

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

#196

Post by TeMPOraL »

NikkiA wrote: post #195
robertlagrant wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox would do well to make a decent screenshot tool and make it share dropbox links.

Once-upon-a-time dropbox had a built in screenshot tool that could upload to your public directory. It was always a pain because I was forever having to determine which of onedrive or dropbox had taken print screen handling away from my preferred screenshot tool (at the time, greenshot, now ShareX)

The more important aspect of that story: your public directory. Once upon a time, you could actually link to content in your Dropbox directly. Like, not to some Dropbox interstitial, but to files themselves. dl.dropbox.com/u/[your user ID]/path/to/file.ext would let anyone access the file.ext under [Your Dropbox "Public" directory]/path/to/.

Insanely useful, which is why it both helped Dropbox gain massive userbase, and why it became one of the earliest victims of enshittification.

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

#197

Post by happymellon »

akho wrote: post #193
happymellon wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since we are talking about local first, what about Gokapi?

Gokapi requires an externally-visible IP. It can be self-hosted, but is hardly local-first. Also, why not nginx and a `~/Public` folder if we have an IP.

Because Dropbox links are completely different to just having a shared folder?

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

#198

Post by jasfi »

samwillis wrote: post #5
korpsey wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a webdev only community? I see this being an issue in other development environments..

Not at all, it's open to all. There are many ways to build local first, both with web technologies and with "native" app toolkits. Many of the CRDT tools have started as JS/TS libs but have been rebuilt in Rust to be cross platform, WASM or native. The appeal of using web tech is its accessibility and ease of distribution. Local first and PWAs with the new origin privet file system api kind of go hand in hand, but it…

The cloud offloads a lot of maintenance worries, especially hardware related. E.g. no need to worry about replacing failed hard drives. Can local first really compete?

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

#199

Post by tpush »

dijit wrote: post #12
lotsofpulp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> originally we were all going to be able to host our own stuff in our closets, the 'intelligence' goes in the edges. This would have required fiber to the home with symmetric upload and ipv6 and ISPs not blocking all the ports. In the US, the vast majority of people still only have access to a crappy coaxial cable broadband connection, where they allocate a few Mb/s upload to a whole neighborhood. The lack of that b…

This is the norm in Sweden, aside from Port 25, which you shouldn't be using anyway.

Why shouldn't you be using port 25? You need that if you want to receive email on your own mail server.

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

#200

Post by dijit »

tpush wrote: post #199
dijit wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the norm in Sweden, aside from Port 25, which you shouldn't be using anyway.

Why shouldn't you be using port 25? You need that if you want to receive email on your own mail server.

25 is plaintext.

465 is TLS, and is not blocked.

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