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Comment by poisonborz | Hacker News Reader

The goals have shifted. What is "local" nowadays? ~Everybody uses multiple devices, and things are expected to be in sync. What users now (should) need is easy self-hosting apps and centralised storage, with clients that can work/cache offline locally. A good example is Bitwarden.

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What problem are you solving with that? I can not think of a single workflow that would be advantaged by self-hosting apps vs using local apps with sync.

I meant both. What do you sync with if no central server (main client)? Anything else is unreliable, on/off all the time. And some simpler workflows don't need native apps.

Both what? What problem are you solving?

I don't really get "local apps with sync". Sync to what, each other? In most cases there needs to be an always-on central authority (where backup also happens). My point is that "some device sitting alone in a corner with software and data stored on it" model is outdated (this is the "problem", I hope the "why" is obvious). But "local" should live on, just in the form of users owning most of their infrastructure.

Sync through iCloud or through the app manufacturers servers. Most apps I use are real apps that live on my local device. Then some of them sync through iCloud if I want to use sync. This is something I as the user can enable or disable in the app, and it costs me no subscription fee.

I think that this is much superior to using fake apps that live on some web server. It comes with great drawbacks even when it is on the web server of the app manufacturer. Ten times more pain if I have to host it myself.

Meaning total trust with your cloud provider / app manufacturer. That is your choice, I wouldn't do it. Selfhosting is kind of a pain still, but gets easier every year (and for simple file sync that you mention, it's already rather easy).

If syncing is through iCloud, you'd only have to trust Apple and nobody else, if I understand things right. And yes, I trust Apple a thousand times than I'd trust a web hosting company or all the open source projects involved in self hosting.

Self hosting is an unsurpassable mountain for 99% of people who need to use computers. The risk to security and data loss is much higher than from syncing your apps through iCloud or through the app manufacturer.

Maybe the OP is saying that the advantage of "self-hosted [traditional/non-local-first] apps" over "local-first apps synced to someone else's server" is that with the former you get to control the server. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from using a local-first app that syncs to your own server, though.

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