A New Wave of Peer-to-Peer Apps Heralds a Farm-to-Table Internet

This week, we discuss the local-first computing movement and its push to reduce our reliance on the corporate-owned, cloud-based software tools we use every day.

Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud

Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud Kleppmann et al., Onward! ’19 Watch out! If you start reading this paper you could be lost for hours following all the interesti…

About Us

Around the world, building the internet’s operating system—and a better way to work. In a world of tech companies fighting for growth at any cost, imagine one that gives away its most successful pr…

LocalFirst: You Keep Using That Word

If you’ve been following the local-first scene over the past few years, you already know a good definition for the term “local-first” is hard to pin down. Part of the reason is that most people write software for money … and true local-first software is harder to capitalize. “Local-first” is a direct attack on vendor lock-in of all forms: data, formats, protocols, apps, services, and even environments. But the fact your employer can’t exploit this technology with a new revenue model (yet) is a minor problem.

With the backlash to data centers, Flock and AI glasses, a mass opposition to big tech is underway. Silicon Valley is in denial.

The backlash against data centers is difficult to understand if your salary depends on your not understanding it.

As tech companies race to build data centers, more communities are pushing back

Concerns about electricity bills and local impacts are fueling bipartisan opposition to the massive data centers that power the digital economy, from cloud services to AI chatbots. In Wisconsin, as in other states, the tussles are personal – and fraught.

Local-First Software: Origins And Evolution

Developer interest in local-first software is continuing to grow rapidly in 2024. At the same time, it’s also apparent that developers currently have different views on what they consider to be ‘local-first software’, ranging from narrower to broader definitions. This prompted us to take a closer look at the origins and evolution of local-first.

The Internet Economy

We are living in an era of bundling. The big five consumer tech companies — Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft — have moved far…

Seize the Means of Computation - ProMarket

To regain internet autonomy from Big Tech companies, lower switching costs with legislation that allows new services to subvert network effects and encourage adversarial interoperability. Too often, our discussion of Big Tech’s dominance starts and ends with a simplistic account of network-effects-driven inevitability, as though the winner-take-all market we have today could not have been […]

The Cloud Is a Prison. Can the Local-First Software Movement Set Us Free?

Tired of relying on Big Tech to enable collaboration, peer-to-peer enthusiasts are creating a new model that cuts out the middleman. (That’s you, Google.)

Toward People’s Community Control of Technology: Race, Access, and Education

This field review explores how the benefits of access to computing for racialized and minoritized communities has become an accepted fact in policy and research, despite decades of evidence that technical fixes do not solve the kinds of complex social problems that disproportionately affect these communities.

What technology takes from us – and how to take it back | Rebecca Solnit

The long read: Decisions outsourced, chatbots for friends, the natural world an afterthought: Silicon Valley is giving us life void of connection. There is a way out – but it’s going to take collective effort

SF Compute: Commoditizing Compute to solve the GPU Bubble forever

Selling GPUs to avoid bankruptcy, empowering researchers with short term clusters, and why CoreWeave is maybe a real estate business