While building lix change control I figured out that collaboration was/is the driver behind local to cloud. A secondary reason is compute.

If a system exists that enables (distributed) collaboration on files, the appeal of cloud-based software vanishes. Remote compute becomes possible as well.

At least, that’s the bet we are taking with lix https://lix.opral.com/

I think a short-term driver towards local models is tooling. As difficult as reliably getting useful output can be, and as fragile as the resulting product can be, you want assurances of stability that don't exist with a model in someone else's cloud.

I'm not an expert on anything, though.

Apple is already doing this:

https://www.apple.com/uk/apple-intelligence/