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Local-first software (2019)

(www.inkandswitch.com)
863 points gasull | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.207s | source
1. bichiliad ◴[] No.44481970[source]
I feel like local-first or offline-first can be seen as something catered to niche users when it's brought up in front of strategy or planning folks — they imagine most people having good, reliable internet all the time. The truth is always more frustrating to account for. It is extremely frustrating to see the falloff in functionality in apps when internet is spotty or slow, which happens a lot. Try doing anything in most apps on the subway in New York (where there isn't service in most tunnels) and you'll feel the pain. Or, try doing anything in a crowd and the cell towers are saturated. Fastmail's client won't show you emails without internet, Balatro hangs while it looks for a cloud save, the list goes on and on.