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Yes. It’s shocking just how much cloud SaaS has distorted peoples understanding of things. You need all kinds of layers of cloud complexity and deployment to do

by api 2y ago

Yes. It’s shocking just how much cloud SaaS has distorted peoples understanding of things. You need all kinds of layers of cloud complexity and deployment to do the most trivial stuff. We have 100% reversed the PC revolution and returned to the era of clunky expensive mainframe computing. The reason is that cloud is where all the money is because cloud is DRM. Put software there and you can charge a subscription and nobody can evade it and you have perfect lock in forever. People usually can’t even get their data out. You can also do all kinds of realtime analytics conveniently to optimize your product. Computing architecture is downstream of the business model. Mainframe died originally because there was no Internet and PCs were cheaper, but vendors also lost a lot of their lock in power. Now they have a way to bring a model that is much more profitable back. No more pesky freedom for users, who to be fair if given such freedom will often just refuse to pay, making quality software a non-viable business. Tangent I know.

bluGill 2y ago
There is a lot to like about the clould model as a user. I can access my data where ever I am, from what ever device I have, and I won't lose it to a disc crash. there are faults to the cloud but it solves real problems users have.
- api 2y ago
  There are other ways that could be achieved, like cloud storage constantly mirroring local but encrypted with local keys or keys controlled by the user. This is the iCloud model and it works. Imagine a more open version with competing storage providers. This, however, would hand control back to the user, which would be bad for the software industry with its addiction to lock in and recurring revenue.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    You also need the apps installed on whatever then, and enough CPU power to run those apps. I'm not saying you are wrong, but there is a lot of nuance here.
    - api 2y ago
      For CPU power, a Raspberry Pi today is faster than servers that ran whole medium to large businesses 20 years ago. Much of what people do with SaaS involves backend processes that could run on a 1990s era PC. There are exceptions, like large AI models and huge databases like web search, though in the case of AI models I can run pretty decent ones locally already, but on an admittedly expensive laptop. If the rate at which models grow is not as fast or faster than the rate at which computers grow, mainstream PCs or even phones will catch up eventually. I've actually wondered if that might be a major factor that swings the pendulum back... if you can run an AI that has memorized the entire Internet locally, that makes all kinds of things possible in local compute. Installing apps could be easy, even automatic on demand. That's kind of what the web does. Imagine the web with better caching of program objects, maybe a runtime built around WASM, and an iCloud-type data model, and you can visualize personal computing for today. The kludgy idea of installers that vomit files all over the system is already legacy. But it would still break SaaS lock-in, so this isn't where the money goes. Our software paradigms wrap themselves around whatever works as a business model.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        Are you willing for doom quality? It got the job done, but compared to a modern 3d game it looks really bad. Of course the elephant in the room remains: I need my data where I am.
        api 2y ago
        Modern 3D games are local, so I’m not sure the point there. My point about 90s machines was that most business SaaS is not compute or data heavy unless it’s for a huge corporation. As far as local data: my laptop has terabytes, my phone over a hundred gigabytes. I have fiber at home and have seen speeds approaching a gigabit on 5G. It’s not that often that people sit down at entirely unfamiliar machines they’ve never used, log in, and try to do data intensive work. In that case I suppose an iCloud model of compute would be downloading a lot.
  - johnnyjeans 2y ago
    or plan 9 modern computing is mostly just the most malignant, worst possible re-interpretation of plan 9 anyways

by api 2y ago

bluGill 2y ago

There is a lot to like about the clould model as a user. I can access my data where ever I am, from what ever device I have, and I won't lose it to a disc crash. there are faults to the cloud but it solves real problems users have.

api 2y ago
There are other ways that could be achieved, like cloud storage constantly mirroring local but encrypted with local keys or keys controlled by the user. This is the iCloud model and it works. Imagine a more open version with competing storage providers. This, however, would hand control back to the user, which would be bad for the software industry with its addiction to lock in and recurring revenue.
- bluGill 2y ago
  You also need the apps installed on whatever then, and enough CPU power to run those apps. I'm not saying you are wrong, but there is a lot of nuance here.
  - api 2y ago
    For CPU power, a Raspberry Pi today is faster than servers that ran whole medium to large businesses 20 years ago. Much of what people do with SaaS involves backend processes that could run on a 1990s era PC. There are exceptions, like large AI models and huge databases like web search, though in the case of AI models I can run pretty decent ones locally already, but on an admittedly expensive laptop. If the rate at which models grow is not as fast or faster than the rate at which computers grow, mainstream PCs or even phones will catch up eventually. I've actually wondered if that might be a major factor that swings the pendulum back... if you can run an AI that has memorized the entire Internet locally, that makes all kinds of things possible in local compute. Installing apps could be easy, even automatic on demand. That's kind of what the web does. Imagine the web with better caching of program objects, maybe a runtime built around WASM, and an iCloud-type data model, and you can visualize personal computing for today. The kludgy idea of installers that vomit files all over the system is already legacy. But it would still break SaaS lock-in, so this isn't where the money goes. Our software paradigms wrap themselves around whatever works as a business model.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Are you willing for doom quality? It got the job done, but compared to a modern 3d game it looks really bad. Of course the elephant in the room remains: I need my data where I am.
      - api 2y ago
        Modern 3D games are local, so I’m not sure the point there. My point about 90s machines was that most business SaaS is not compute or data heavy unless it’s for a huge corporation. As far as local data: my laptop has terabytes, my phone over a hundred gigabytes. I have fiber at home and have seen speeds approaching a gigabit on 5G. It’s not that often that people sit down at entirely unfamiliar machines they’ve never used, log in, and try to do data intensive work. In that case I suppose an iCloud model of compute would be downloading a lot.
- johnnyjeans 2y ago
  or plan 9 modern computing is mostly just the most malignant, worst possible re-interpretation of plan 9 anyways