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

Summary

It’s amazing how easily we can collaborate online nowadays. We use Google Docs to collaborate on documents, spreadsheets and presentations; in Figma we work together on user interface designs; we communicate with colleagues using Slack; we track tasks in Trello; and so on. We depend on these and many other online services, e.g. for taking notes, planning projects or events, remembering contacts, and a whole raft of business uses. We will call these services “cloud apps,” but you could just as well call them “SaaS” or “web-based apps.” What they have in common is that we typically access them through a web browser or through mobile apps, and that they store their data on a server. Today’s cloud apps offer big benefits compared to earlier generations of software: seamless collaboration, and being able to access data from any device. As we run more and more of our lives and work through these cloud apps, they become more and more critical to us. The more time we invest in using one of these apps, the more valuable the data in it becomes to us. However, in our research we have spoken to a lot of creative professionals, and in that process we have also learned about the downsides of cloud apps. When you have put a lot of creative energy and effort into making something, you tend to have a deep emotional attachment to it. If you do creative work, this probably seems familiar. (When we say “creative work,” we mean not just visual art, or music, or poetry — many other activities, such as explaining a technical topic, implementing an intricate algorithm, designing a user interface, or figuring out how to lead a team towards some goal are also creative efforts.) In the process of performing that creative work, you typically produce files and data: documents, presentations, spreadsheets, code, notes, drawings, and so on. And you will want to keep that data: for reference and inspiration in the future, to include it in a portfolio, or simply to archive because you feel proud of...