davideisinger.com/static/archive/www-theverge-com-ywplts.txt

[1]Skip to main content
[2]The Verge logo.[3]The Verge homepage

  • [4]The Verge homepageThe Verge logo./
  • [5]Tech/
  • [6]Reviews/
  • [7]Science/
  • [8]Entertainment/
  • MoreMenu

[10]The Verge logo.
Menu

  • [12]Vergecast/
  • [13]Podcasts/
  • [14]Tech

From the cloud to your computer: a new theory of how software works

From the cloud to your computer: a new theory of how software works

/

From offline mode to multiplayer to heady questions about ownership, we’re
rethinking the way software works. But what does better look like?

By [15]David Pierce, editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade
of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street
Journal, and Wired.

Oct 30, 2023, 3:55 PM UTC

Share this story

  • 
  • 
  • 

Illustration of the Vergecast logo
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

For a while, I really thought I could be a self-hoster. After months of talking
to people about platforms and security and what it means that we really don’t
own any of the data and apps we use every day, my big plan was to buy a mini PC
and run my life off my own device.

A lot of Docker experimentation later, I pretty much gave up. (As one person
put it to me, if you ever find yourself typing in an IP address and port
number, you’ve officially exited the realm of “things most people will ever
do.”) And so this episode of [20]The Vergecast, the fourth and final in our
series about connectivity, became about something else. Self-hosting is a nice
idea and a totally impractical reality for most people; signing into cloud
services and downloading apps is just so much easier to do!

But there are plenty of people out there who think we don’t have to choose.
They think it’s possible to build software that both belongs to us and works
across all our devices, that is collaborative and user-friendly and has an
offline mode. They even have a term for this — [21]local-first software — and
point to apps like [22]Obsidian as proof that it can work.

After that, we get to one more idea about software: that the solution isn’t to
change the way we acquire and access software but rather to change the things
we can do to that software. In his book [23]The Internet Con, activist and
author Cory Doctorow argues that interoperability might be the solution to most
of our tech woes. Interop could turn the internet from a series of walled
gardens into a teeming forest of interconnected services that are only as
successful as they are good. But that requires some legal changes and some big
new ideas about how we build and use software.

Software has connected us and connected everything. So how do we connect to our
software? That’s the question of this episode. The answer doesn’t quite look
like Plex servers and NAS systems, but it might be the next best thing.

Most Popular
Most Popular

 1. [25]

    Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu will utterly fold and pay $2.4M to settle its
    lawsuit

    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 2. [26]

    The MacBook Air gets an M3 upgrade

    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 3. [27]

    Apple hit with first-ever EU fine following Spotify complaint

    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 4. [28]

    Google’s morale crisis is about to get worse

    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 5. [29]

    Eufy’s new 360-degree 4K camera doesn’t need Wi-Fi or power outlets

    ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Verge Deals

/ Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your
inbox daily.

Email (required)[30][                    ]Sign up
By submitting your email, you agree to our [32]Terms and [33]Privacy Notice.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google [34]Privacy Policy and [35]
Terms of Service apply.
From our sponsor

[36]

[37]
Advertiser Content FromSponsor logo
Sponsor thumbnail

More from [38]Tech

  • Stock image illustration featuring the Nintendo logo stamped in black on a
    background of tan, blue, and black color blocking.Stock image illustration
    featuring the Nintendo logo stamped in black on a background of tan, blue,
    and black color blocking.

    [39]The Nintendo Switch 2 will now reportedly arrive in 2025 instead of
    2024

  • Apple AirPods ProApple AirPods Pro

    [40]The best Presidents Day deals you can already get

  • Figma CEO Dylan Field.Figma CEO Dylan Field.

    [41]Interview: Figma’s CEO on life after the company’s failed sale to Adobe

  • An image announcing Vudu’s rebranding to Fandango at Home.An image
    announcing Vudu’s rebranding to Fandango at Home.

    [42]Vudu’s name is changing to ‘Fandango at Home’

  • 
    [43]
    Advertiser Content FromSponsor logo

    [44]

[45]The Verge logo.

  • [46]Terms of Use
  • [47]Privacy Notice
  • [48]Cookie Policy
  • [49]Do Not Sell Or Share My Personal Info
  • [50]Licensing FAQ
  • [51]Accessibility
  • [52]Platform Status
  • [53]How We Rate and Review Products

  • [54]Contact
  • [55]Tip Us
  • [56]Community Guidelines
  • [57]About
  • [58]Ethics Statement

The Verge is a vox media network

  • [59]Advertise with us
  • [60]Jobs @ Vox Media

© 2024 [61]Vox Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved


References:

[1] https://www.theverge.com/23938533/self-hosting-local-first-software-vergecast#content
[2] https://www.theverge.com/
[3] https://www.theverge.com/
[4] https://www.theverge.com/
[5] https://www.theverge.com/tech
[6] https://www.theverge.com/reviews
[7] https://www.theverge.com/science
[8] https://www.theverge.com/entertainment
[10] https://www.theverge.com/
[12] https://www.theverge.com/the-vergecast
[13] https://www.theverge.com/podcast
[14] https://www.theverge.com/tech
[15] https://www.theverge.com/authors/david-pierce
[20] https://pod.link/vergecast
[21] https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/
[22] https://obsidian.md/
[23] https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con
[25] https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/4/24090357/nintendo-yuzu-emulator-lawsuit-settlement
[26] https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/4/24089999/apple-macbook-air-m3-announced-13-15-inch
[27] https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/4/24005938/european-commission-antitrust-apple-investigation-anti-steering-rules-app-developers
[28] https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/3/24089843/google-morale-crisis-about-to-get-worse
[29] https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/27/24085151/anker-eufy-4k-lte-cam-s330-features-price
[32] https://www.voxmedia.com/legal/terms-of-use
[33] https://www.voxmedia.com/legal/privacy-notice
[34] https://policies.google.com/privacy
[35] https://policies.google.com/terms
[36] http://theverge.com/
[37] http://theverge.com/
[38] https://www.theverge.com/tech
[39] https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/16/24075174/switch-2-launch-date-rumor-q1-2025
[40] https://www.theverge.com/24072881/best-presidents-day-sales-deals-2024-apple-tvs-gaming-headphones-smartwatches
[41] https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/16/24075126/figma-ceo-dylan-field-interview-after-adobe
[42] https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/16/24075041/vudu-fandango-at-home-rebranding-new-name
[43] http://theverge.com/
[44] http://theverge.com/
[45] https://www.theverge.com/
[46] https://www.voxmedia.com/legal/terms-of-use
[47] https://www.voxmedia.com/legal/privacy-notice
[48] https://www.voxmedia.com/legal/cookie-policy
[49] https://www.theverge.com/contact
[50] https://www.voxmedia.com/pages/licensing
[51] https://www.voxmedia.com/legal/accessibility
[52] https://status.voxmedia.com/
[53] https://www.theverge.com/pages/how-we-rate
[54] https://www.theverge.com/contact-the-verge
[55] https://www.theverge.com/a/tip-us-secure-contact-email
[56] https://www.theverge.com/community-guidelines
[57] https://www.theverge.com/about-the-verge
[58] https://www.theverge.com/ethics-statement
[59] https://www.voxmedia.com/vox-advertising
[60] https://jobs.voxmedia.com/
[61] https://www.voxmedia.com/