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Why haven't local-first apps become popular?

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Re: Why haven't local-first apps become popular?

#131

Post by guywithahat »

lordnacho wrote: post #12

Local-first was the first kind of app. Way up into the 2000s, you'd use your local excel/word/etc, and the sync mechanism was calling your file annual_accounts_final_v3_amend_v5_final(3).xls But also nowadays you want to have information from other computers. Everything from shared calendars to the weather, or a social media entry. There's so much more you can do with internet access, you need to be able to access re…

I also suspect it's more portable. You build one site with one API, and then you just interact with that api across all the devices you support. If you write it locally it has to get rewritten for each platform

Re: Why haven't local-first apps become popular?

#132

Post by marginalia_nu »

robenkleene wrote: post #99
marginalia_nu wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no easy way to keep sync, either. Look at CAP theorem. You can decide which leg you can do without, but you can't solve the distributed computing "problem". Best is just be aware of what tradeoff you're making. Git has largely solved asynchronous decentralized collaboration, but it requires file formats that are ideally as human understandable as machine-readable, or at least diffable/mergable in a way wher…

The problem with "human understandable" with respect to resolving syncing conflicts, is that's not an achievable goal for anything that's not text first. E.g., visual and audio content will never fit well into that model.

I can undo and redo edits in these mediums. Why can't these edits be saved and reapplied?

Not saying this would be in any way easy, but I'm also not seeing any inherent obstacles.

Re: Why haven't local-first apps become popular?

#133

Post by 0xffff2 »

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. How on Earth could anyone consider the example in #2 "conflict-free"? You haven't removed the conflict, you're just ignored it! Anything can be conflict free in that case.

Obviously not every problem will have such an obvious right answer, but given the example the author chose, I don't see how you could accept any solution that doesn't produce "100" as a correct result.

Re: Why haven't local-first apps become popular?

#134

Post by JustExAWS »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #24
lordnacho wrote: post #12

Local-first was the first kind of app. Way up into the 2000s, you'd use your local excel/word/etc, and the sync mechanism was calling your file annual_accounts_final_v3_amend_v5_final(3).xls But also nowadays you want to have information from other computers. Everything from shared calendars to the weather, or a social media entry. There's so much more you can do with internet access, you need to be able to access re…

> There's no easy way to keep sync, either. Look at CAP theorem. You can decide which leg you can do without, but you can't solve the distributed computing "problem". Best is just be aware of what tradeoff you're making. Git has largely solved asynchronous decentralized collaboration, but it requires file formats that are ideally as human understandable as machine-readable, or at least diffable/mergable in a way wher…

Git hasn’t solved it in a way that any normal person would want to deal with.

Re: Why haven't local-first apps become popular?

#135

Post by shortercode »

jlarocco wrote: post #109
em-bee wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Local-first apps" are the worst of everything - crappy, dumbed down web UI along with no privacy. which apps are you talking about here? that description doesn't make any sense to me.

Aren't "local-first apps" in this context the ones where you vist "example.com", and it caches a bunch of HTML and Javascript and saves data locally using the "local storage" APIs? And then periodically makes requests back to "example.com" to check for updates, sync data, etc.?

Kinda yes kinda no? Most PWAs have some idea of offline support but it tends to be an afterthought. The argument of local first is that you design the app to work against a local database ( normally stashed in indexeddb or OPFS ) meaning that you don’t have to wait for data to load or network requests to complete. Your backend is then just a dumb storage engine which accepts changes and sends push messages to the client to indicate things have changed.

The only “big” local first app I’m aware of is Linear.

Re: Why haven't local-first apps become popular?

#136

Post by patwolf »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

Lotus Notes solved syncing for object databases but the world forgot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCL_Notes

From my time using Notes I remember lots of manual replication config to get anything to properly work offline, and even then I struggled to get it to work reliably. So while they might have solved it, I don't think their solution was very good.

Re: Why haven't local-first apps become popular?

#137

Post by taeric »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #24
lordnacho wrote: post #12

Local-first was the first kind of app. Way up into the 2000s, you'd use your local excel/word/etc, and the sync mechanism was calling your file annual_accounts_final_v3_amend_v5_final(3).xls But also nowadays you want to have information from other computers. Everything from shared calendars to the weather, or a social media entry. There's so much more you can do with internet access, you need to be able to access re…

> There's no easy way to keep sync, either. Look at CAP theorem. You can decide which leg you can do without, but you can't solve the distributed computing "problem". Best is just be aware of what tradeoff you're making. Git has largely solved asynchronous decentralized collaboration, but it requires file formats that are ideally as human understandable as machine-readable, or at least diffable/mergable in a way wher…

Git does no such thing. Plain text files with free form merging capabilities somewhat solves the idea that you can merge things. But, to make that work, the heavy lifting has to be done by the users of the system.

So, sure, if you are saying "people trained to use git" there, I agree. And you wind up having all sorts of implicit rules and guidelines that you follow to make it more manageable.

This is a lot like saying roads have solved how to get people using dangerous equipment on a regular basis without killing everyone. Only true if you train the drivers on the rules of the road. And there are many rules that people wind up internalizing as they get older and more experienced.

Re: Why haven't local-first apps become popular?

#138

Post by anon1395 »

alextingle wrote: post #73
anon1395 wrote: post #55

Personally I think PWAs are a bit confusing for consumers as they think "It's a website, i won't be able to use it offline." and if they get reminded that they can use it offline they usually forget.

Why would they think "its a web-site"? PWAs just look like normal phone apps. In fact, many "normal" phone apps are basically just a web-site inside a thin wrapper. So the difference is largely academic in many cases.

Most ordinary people thing that they are just adding a shortcut to the website, whereas these wrappers convince the user they are actually installing an app app.

Re: Why haven't local-first apps become popular?

#140

Post by observationist »

sylens wrote: post #66

There's no money in making a local first app. Businesses want your data, they want you to be dependent on them, and they want to be able to monetize your behavior and attention

They want everything to be cloud applications and services that run on terminals you rent, managed through portals you have subscribe to. They want to sell your attention and screenshare on top of making you pay for the privilege of being nickel and dimed, and they want to surveil every aspect of your life, free from liability or accountability for what they do with the data, or who they sell it to.
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