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Google and the other cloud companies' strategy is mostly all the same: they want to charge rent on every computer application possible. What has started to chan
by zemo 5y ago
Google and the other cloud companies' strategy is mostly all the same: they want to charge rent on every computer application possible. What has started to change in popular perception is the image of the cloud providers having all of your data. Why should they have all of my data? A reasonable reaction to the status quo of cloud applications.
This is just as nefarious as a traditional SAAS application, if not more so. Google is setting up a system whereby you can have the data on your own machine, but the actual logic of how to interpret the data is still loaded off of a server on-demand, with the end goal being that they can charge you rent to access files on your own device. Pretty cool for them, but seems like a raw deal for the end-user.
- api 5y agoThe "free as in beer" software movement normalized the idea that locally run software should all be free, so the center of new software development moved to a cloud-first model. The cloud is the only DRM that works, so cloud software can never be pirated either. "We need to liberate ourselves from closed-source software!" Result: the software moves where it can't be liberated. It's not some big conspiracy. It's like how a plant grows toward the sun. It's that software is very labor intensive to produce and there must be an economic model. If there's no economic model in one place, it goes somewhere else where there is. If we want computing to be open, free, and user-centric (rather than user-exploiting), we have to restructure the industry so that that's where the money is.
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 5y agoHonest question: restructure it how? The link to a succinct explanation would be much appreciated.