Local-first software (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#41

Post by bigyabai » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

cyanydeez wrote: post #3

Local first is almost equates to both privacy protective and public software good. Essentially antithetical to capitalism, especially America's toxic late stage subscription based enshittification. Which means its typically a labor of love or a government org has a long term understanding of Software as a Infrastructure (as opposed to SaaS)

"Local first" is neither equivalent to privacy protection or public software good. Many businesses sell local-first software that still contains remote backdoors[0] you cannot control. And it most certainly doesn't ensure "public software good" when there is zero obligation to improve the upstream or empower users to seek alternatives.

I would sooner trust a GPL-licensed remote software program than store a kilobyte of personally identifying information in a proprietary "local first" system.

[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/06/apple-governments-surve...

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#42

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 5:24 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #24

Personally, I disagree with this approach. This is trying to solve a business problem (I can't trust cloud-providers) with a technical trade-off (avoid centralized architecture). The problems with closed-source software (lack of control, lack of reliability) were solved with a new business model: open source development, which came with new licenses and new ways of getting revenue (maintenance contracts instead of li…

> End-of-life contracts: cloud-vendors should contractually spell out what happens if they can't afford to keep the servers running.

I'm trying to imagine how this would be enforced when a company shutters and it's principals walk away.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#43

Post by sgt » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 5:31 PM UTC

davepeck wrote: post #10

In theory, I love the local-first mode of building. It aligns well with “small tech” philosophy where privacy and data ownership are fundamental. In practice, it’s hard! You’re effectively responsible for building a sync engine, handling conflict resolution, managing schema migration, etc. This said, tools for local-first software development seem to have improved in the past couple years. I keep my eye on jazz.tools…

There's also PowerSync: https://www.powersync.com/

It's also open source and has bindings for Dart, JS, Swift, C#, Kotlin, etc

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#44

Post by al_borland » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 5:34 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #24

Personally, I disagree with this approach. This is trying to solve a business problem (I can't trust cloud-providers) with a technical trade-off (avoid centralized architecture). The problems with closed-source software (lack of control, lack of reliability) were solved with a new business model: open source development, which came with new licenses and new ways of getting revenue (maintenance contracts instead of li…

Does this really solve the problem? Let's say I'm using a cloud provider for some service I enjoy. They have documents that spell out that if they have to close their doors they will give X months of notice and allow for a data export. Ok, great. Now they decide to shut their doors and honor those agreements. What am I left with? A giant JSON file that is effectively useless unless I decide to write my own app, or some nice stranger does? The thought is there, it's better than nothing, but it's not as good as having a local app that will keep running, potentially for years or decades, after the company shuts their doors or drops support.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#45

Post by GMoromisato » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 5:36 PM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #42

GMoromisato wrote: post #24

Personally, I disagree with this approach. This is trying to solve a business problem (I can't trust cloud-providers) with a technical trade-off (avoid centralized architecture). The problems with closed-source software (lack of control, lack of reliability) were solved with a new business model: open source development, which came with new licenses and new ways of getting revenue (maintenance contracts instead of li…

> End-of-life contracts: cloud-vendors should contractually spell out what happens if they can't afford to keep the servers running. I'm trying to imagine how this would be enforced when a company shutters and it's principals walk away.

It's a good question--I am not a lawyer.

But that's the point of contracts, right? When a company shuts down, the contracts become part of the liabilities. E.g., if the contract says "you must pay each customer $1000 if we shut down" then the customers become creditors in a bankruptcy proceeding. It doesn't guarantee that they get all (or any) money, but their interests are negotiated by the bankruptcy judge.

Similarly, I can imagine a contract that says, "if the company shuts down, all our software becomes open source." Again, this would be managed by a bankruptcy judge who would mandate a release instead of allowing the creditors to gain the IP.

Another possibility is for the company to create a legal trust that is funded to keep the servers running (at a minimal level) for some specified amount of time.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#46

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 5:37 PM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #42

GMoromisato wrote: post #24

Personally, I disagree with this approach. This is trying to solve a business problem (I can't trust cloud-providers) with a technical trade-off (avoid centralized architecture). The problems with closed-source software (lack of control, lack of reliability) were solved with a new business model: open source development, which came with new licenses and new ways of getting revenue (maintenance contracts instead of li…

> End-of-life contracts: cloud-vendors should contractually spell out what happens if they can't afford to keep the servers running. I'm trying to imagine how this would be enforced when a company shutters and it's principals walk away.

(cont. thinking...) One possibility. A 3rd party manages a continually updating data escrow. It'd add some expense and complexity to the going concern.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#47

Post by charcircuit » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 5:40 PM UTC

DataDaoDe wrote: post #29

Yes a thousand percent! I'm working on this too. I'm sick of everyone trying to come up with a use case to get all my data in everyone's cloud so I have to pay a subscription fee to just make things work. I'm working on a fitness tracking app right now that will use the sublime model - just buy it, get updates for X years, sync with all your devices and use it forever. If you want updates after X years buy the newest…

>you're not monetizing via ads

Yes, you are. You can find tons of purely local apps that monetize themselves with ads.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#48

Post by maccard » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 5:42 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #24

Personally, I disagree with this approach. This is trying to solve a business problem (I can't trust cloud-providers) with a technical trade-off (avoid centralized architecture). The problems with closed-source software (lack of control, lack of reliability) were solved with a new business model: open source development, which came with new licenses and new ways of getting revenue (maintenance contracts instead of li…

> Vendors must spell out how data gets migrated out, and all formats must be either open or (at minimum) fully documented.

Anecdotally, I’ve never worked anywhere where the data formats are documented in any way other than a schema in code,

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#49

Post by DataDaoDe » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 5:45 PM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #47

DataDaoDe wrote: post #29

Yes a thousand percent! I'm working on this too. I'm sick of everyone trying to come up with a use case to get all my data in everyone's cloud so I have to pay a subscription fee to just make things work. I'm working on a fitness tracking app right now that will use the sublime model - just buy it, get updates for X years, sync with all your devices and use it forever. If you want updates after X years buy the newest…

>you're not monetizing via ads Yes, you are. You can find tons of purely local apps that monetize themselves with ads.

Sure you could. I'm not, I don't think its in the spirit of local first. And I wouldn't pay money for that, but if you or someone else wants to build that kind of software - its a free world :)

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#50

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Sat, Jul 05, 2025, 5:49 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #45

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> End-of-life contracts: cloud-vendors should contractually spell out what happens if they can't afford to keep the servers running. I'm trying to imagine how this would be enforced when a company shutters and it's principals walk away.

It's a good question--I am not a lawyer. But that's the point of contracts, right? When a company shuts down, the contracts become part of the liabilities. E.g., if the contract says "you must pay each customer $1000 if we shut down" then the customers become creditors in a bankruptcy proceeding. It doesn't guarantee that they get all (or any) money, but their interests are negotiated by the bankruptcy judge. Similar…

> When a company shuts down, the contracts become part of the liabilities.

The asset in the contract is their customer's data; it is becoming stale by the minute. It could be residing in debtor-owned hardware and/or in data centers that are no longer getting their bills paid.

It takes time to get a trustee assigned and I think we need an immediate response - like same day. (NAL but prep'd 7s & 13s)