Local-first software (2019)

Self hosting (which is often adjacent to local-first software) is fine. I've done it for years.

But it is a nightmare when it goes wrong: the conclusion I've reached is that it is out of reach to regular people who don't want the Byzantine support load that could accompany something going wrong. They want turnkey. They want simple. They aren't interested in operating services, they're interested in using them.

The FLOSS model of self hosting doesn't really offer a reliable way of getting this: most businesses operating this way are undercapitalised and have little hope of ever being any other way. Many are just hobbies. There are a few exceptions, but they're rare and fundamentally the possibility of needing support still exists.

What is needed, imo, is to leverage the power of centralised, professional operations and development, but to govern it democratically. This means cooperatives where users are active participants in governance alongside employees.

I've done a little work towards this myself, in the form of a not-yet-seen-the-light-of-day project.

What I'd love to see is a set of developers and operators actually getting paid for their work and users getting a better deal in terms of cost, service, and privacy, on their own (aggregate) terms. Honestly, I'd love to be one of them.

Does anyone think this has legs to the same extent as local-first or self hosting? Curious to know people's responses.

I was about to suggest that a better, more open, and fair form of capitalism would need to be used as a tool...but then, re-reading your comment - "...leverage the power of centralised, professional operations and development, but to govern it democratically..." - i think you better encapsulate what i meant to convey. :-)

That being said, yes, i do believe *in the near/upcoming future* local-first, self-hosting and i will add more fair open source vendors will work! Well, at least, i hope so! I say that because Europe's recent desire to pivot away from the big U.s. tech companies, and towards more digital sovereignty - in my opinion - begins the foundational dependency for an ecosystem that will/could sustain self hosting, etc. The more that europe is able to pivot away from big tech, the more possibilty exists for more and varied non-big tech vendors manifest...and the more that Europe adopts open source, the more the possibility that usage and expertise of self-hosting grows....plus, for those who do not know how to, or simply do not wish to manage services themselves...well, in time i think Europe will have fostered a vast array of vendors who can provide such open source, digital services, but get paid a fair cost for providing fair value/services, etc. ...and, by the way, i say this all as a biased person in favor of open source AS WELL AS being an American. :-)