Comment by the_snooze
9 days ago
Anything with online dependencies will necessarily require ongoing upkeep and ongoing costs. If a system is not local-first (or ideally local-only), it’s not designed for long-term dependability.
Connected appliances and cars have got to be the stupidest bit of engineering from a practical standpoint.
The entire thing is because of subscription revenue.
It’s self reinforcing because those companies that get subscription revenue have both more revenue and higher valuations enabling more fund raising, causing them to beat out companies that do not follow this model. This is why local first software died.
I remember seeing somebody summarize this as "SaaS is a pricing model" or "SaaS is financialization" and it totally rings true. Compared to normal software pricing, a subscription gives you predictable recurring revenue and a natural sort of price discrimination (people who use your system more, pay more). It's also a psychological thing: folks got anchored on really low up-front prices for software, so paying $2000 for something up-front sounds crazy even if you use it daily for years, but paying $25/month feels reasonable. (See also how much people complain about paying $60 for video games which they play for thousands of hours!)
It's sad because the dynamics and incentives around clear, up-front prices seem generally better than SaaS (more user control, less lock-in), but almost all commercial software morphs into SaaS thanks to a mix of psychology, culture and market dynamics.
There are other advantages to having your software and data managed by somebody else, but they are far less determinative than structural and pricing factors. In a slightly different world, it's not hard to imagine relatively expensive software up-front that comes with a smaller, optional (perhaps even third-party!) subscription service for data storage and syncing. It's a shame that we do not live in that world.
SaaS is a business model. Cloud is DRM. If you run the software in the cloud it can't be pirated and there is perfect lock-in. Double if the data can't be exported.
Related: I've been incubating an idea for a while that open source, as it presently stands, is largely an ecosystem that exists in support of cloud SaaS. This is quite paradoxical because cloud SaaS is by far the least free model for software -- far, far less free than closed source commercial local software.
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Correct. SaaS is a business model, not a technical concept. But the real problem is that there is no equivalent business model for selling local first software. Traditional desktop apps were single purchase items. Local first is not because you just navigate to a website in your browser and blammo you get the software. What we need is a way to make money off of local first software.
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It's the missing middle. A manager can just expense $25/mo, while $2000 requires an approval process, which requires outside sales, which means it really costs at least $20,000.
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The root cause of the problem is that it's easier to make personalized stuff with server/backend (?cloud?) than without maybe?
Example: I made a firefox extension that automatically fills forms using LLM. It's fully offline (except OPTIONALLY) the LLM part, optionally because it also supports Ollama locally.
Now the issue is that it's way too hard for most people to use: find the LLM to run, acquire it somehow (pay to run it online or download it to run in Ollama) gotta configure your API url, enter API key, save all of your details for form fulling locally in text files which you then have to backup and synchronize to other devices yourself.
The alternative would be: create account, give money, enter details and all is synced and backedup automatically accross devices, online LLM pre-selected and configured. Ready to go. No messing around with Ollama or openrouter, just go.
I don't know how to solve it in a local way that would be as user friendly as the subscription way would be.
Now things like cars and washing machines are a different story :p
> The root cause of the problem is that it's easier to make personalized stuff with server/backend (?cloud?) than without maybe?
That, and also there are real benefits to the end user of having everything persisted in the cloud by default.
I don't think having to manually sync preferences (or set up an unnecessary LLM) is really "the root cause" of "why local first software died".
Can the LLM not help with setting up the local part? (Sorry, was just the first thought i had.)
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Pretty much greed being a universally destructive force in the world as usual.
When Apple joined the madness, all hopes where lost (that was a long time ago now, sight)
Yeah Dropbox Apple etc. provide enough free or paid storage that shows you the true cost. Circa $10 for 2Tb. Cloudflare let's you host static files pretty much for free. Or cost is rounding error.
So you can run 1000 local first app that syncs to a Dropbox for that 10/m in storage. And that storage is full B2C level ready to go not some low level s3 like primitive. Has auth, has supported has programs to sync.
Really most of the cloud cost is not needed.
Anybody opposing the "Stop Killing Games" initiative should read this comment.
Nobody is forcing anybody to make their games rely solely on online services. It's not a legal requirement, regulatory requirement, or anything else. It is a choice, like most things in software. To make the choice to rely on online services and then say "we'll have to spend money later to unfuck this!" is honestly short sided, pathetic, and nobody should accept it.