The Cloud Is a Prison. Can the Local-First Software Movement Set Us Free?
The Cloud Is a Prison. Can the Local-First Software Movement Set Us Free?
Tired of relying on Big Tech to enable collaboration, peer-to-peer enthusiasts are creating a new model that cuts out the middleman. (That’s you, Google.)
“The cloud” does not exist, it’s just someone else’s computer.
I mean…
I gotta say, I really hate it when people say this statement.
That’s a pithy saying, but the cloud is a totally different model than a “computer”.
The concept of “cloud” (generally) has its own way of interacting with tooling, it’s got a huge economy of scale that brings resiliency, a ton of interconnected services, etc. There’s more to it than just computers.
That’s like saying “the Highway doesn’t exist, it’s just someone else’s driveway.”—yeah, but there’s more to it than just streets.
I work in a company that runs an own cloud for most of it’s business operations and for customers. I know where the data center is and when I go there I SEE the computers running the cloud.
It’s physical hardware running virtual machines and storage servers, and network switches with absurdly and unnecessary complex configuration, all owned by, well, someone else (the company).
So yes, the features of “the cloud” are distinct from your everyday stuff done on the computer sitting under your desk, but it really is just someone else’s computer running “the cloud”.
There's a place for the cloud and then there's not, so many people host things on the cloud because they think that's the thing to do, when, just like most other things in IT/dev work, there is a time and place to use the cloud.
That's a very simplified version of it that just ignores the premise though. The cloud does a lot of things that locally-hosted software and content does not, and not all of it is simply by nature of being on another PC
Hence why the article seems to suggest advancing P2P for more uses, which is another way to visit another computer, but has many differences from visiting "The Cloud"
More accurately, it's someone else's network of pluggable computers. "The cloud" is just a convenient metaphor for "it's up there,where someome else keeps it working".
The point is to free up resources in individual companies that would otherwise be used maintaining the infrastructure.
In a lot of companies that translates to having fewer employees to pay. Enlightened companies keep those people and allocate them to other, profitable, activities.
A wonderful and Powerful effect of vitualization is the idea of declarative infrastructure. Individual companies can allocate those Cloud resources in specialized ways. It's primary value is in economies of scale.
Tangentially: Microsoft Teams and SharePoint web infuriate me daily. All the functions that should be separate programs are rolled up into one inseparable window forcing you into a single task workflow.
Want to have two folders open at once that you can drag between? Want to copy a file to your desktop? Read a message from a colleague while looking at a planner item? Pretty much any basic task that Windows 95 can handle with ease? You're screwed.
These are all things that should be separate programs handled by the OS and a samba share. The MS Office ecosystem has regressed massively over just a few short years thanks to teams.
This us why we all need to use and evangelize LibreOffice!
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Holy shit I suffer from this daily, and I notice no one else complains in my company.
I've been using Norton Commander and then Total Commander for like 20+ years and I'm used to being able to do everything with a couple of keypressings, and now I'm being obligated to deal with multiple slow clicks and awkwadly placed menus to do the most simple task.
I tried using the SharePoint Plugin for TC, but it requires the freaking pope to allow my loggin.
I tried using the SharePoint Plugin for TC, but it requires the freaking pope to allow my loggin.
"The power of Microsoft compels you!"
"The power of Microsoft compels you!"
"The power of Microsoft compels you!"
"Please just let me in FFS!"
Error 53003: Your sign-in request was blocked due to a conditional access policy configured on the Tenant where you tried to authenticate.
SharePoint
Oh come on! Everyone knows that SharePoint's only reason for existing is to act as a black hole for Microsoft Office documents. They go in but they never come out. Nothing intelligent can escape!
We have already seen the effects of over-reliance on a few CDNs and cloud providers: One bad push, one ill intentioned employee and potentially entire portions of the web might become unaccessible. That by itself should have been the end of this business model long ago
So you're recognizing that a bad command execution can exist in CDN or cloud provider, but where is your recognition of the tens of millions off bad command executions that happen in small IT shops every month?
I looks like you're ignoring the practical realities that companies rarely ever:
- hire enough support staff
- hire enough skilled staff
- invest in enough redundant infrastructure to survive hardware or connectivity failures
- design applications with resiliency
- have high enough rigor for audit, safe change control, rollback
- shield the operations stupid decisions leads impose because business goals are more important that IT safety
All of these things lead to system impacts and downtime that can only come from running your own datacenters.
The cloud isn't perfect, but for lots and lots of companies its a much better and cheaper option than "rolling your own".
Given the context of the article, the alternative suggestion isn't "set up your own server" but "use software that doesn't require a server", which sidesteps most of that list.
but where is your recognition of the tens of millions off bad command executions that happen in small IT shops every month?
A bad command execution in a small IT shop will only bring down a couple of websites at most. A bad command execution in large cloud providers can literally make significant portions of the web unavailable, just by the sheer number of services dependent on it.
The same applies for most of the "practical realities" you noted out: Redundant infrastructure can only work as well as the software running on it. The convenience is not worth the risk.
can only come from running your own datacenters.
cough.. whhhat.. all of those thing can and do occur in cloud-only companies. just because its someone elses hardware doesnt mean every single thing you listed isnt a risk.
If no legal issues stand in your way and your uptime requirement warrant the invest, you can design and host your system across multiple providers. So instead of "just" going multi-datacenter within for example Azure, you go multi-datacenter across Azure, AWS, GCP, etc.
How? Each cloud provider manages their cross-regional solutions in very specific ways, and they certainly don't cooperate with each other.
I generally think the Cloud is popular for a reason—it has different benefits and downsides to local storage and should be considered separate, as they have different purposes. Now if you're talking about a company forcing you to use their cloud when you don't need to, that's different. But there's no denying it's useful for the specific use cases.
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Good bot, good ai