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.)
I felt this “prison” very strongly with iCloud. Don’t get me wrong, I think iCloud functions exceptionally well. It’s an extremely well integrated cloud and works seamlessly with all Apple products. It’s just that after a while I start to realize just how much of my life was sitting on Apple servers and what a dependency I had on Apple, hoping they are the good guy (narrator: they were not, in fact, the good guy) or at least, not as bad as the next best option (I feel Google has legitimately become evil at this point). I was constantly reading about security and getting myself worried, etc.
Finally I just bought a NAS. Synology is my current choice, but use whatever you prefer. A NAS can replicate anything the “cloud” can do, it’s faster, it’s safer, it doesn’t rely on the good graces of any cloud provider. YOU hold the access to your data. As it should be. I still use the “cloud” for my backups with HyperBackup sending encrypted backups to Wasabi, but that is a different matter. Even if Wasabi decided to be evil, my data is encrypted before it ever leaves the NAS and Wasabi could never see my raw data like Apple/Google can.
The only thing holding people back from this, I guess, is price. Apple charges $0.99/month for 500gigs, while just the NAS itself with no drives will cost you several hundred. But man, not being worried about the latest cloud drama, government overreach, privacy scandals, etc is worth every cent. A Synology NAS with Tailscale is just about the safest place to put my data. All the Snyology mobile apps even pass the gf test for features and ease of use. I recommend a small 2-bay NAS to everyone I can.
But the NAS is in your house… which basically means if it gets flooded/burns down all your data is gone too.
I already have my data on my PC, a second backup inside the same house isn’t worth that much. But instead of relying on a cloud service I just rent a virtual server (for various things) and use Seafile to keep my data in sync.
PC breaks? House burns down? My data is on my own server in a datacenter. My server gets cancelled? My data is on my PCs.
So even with your NAS you are 100% reliant on a cloud backup still, so why did you get the NAS when you already have a copy of your data on your devices?
PC breaks? House burns down? My data is encrypted in a datacenter. My account gets cancelled? My data is on my NAS.
I don’t store much data on my PCs or devices at all. Any data that is there I treat as transient. The NAS acts as permanent storage. So if the devices die, I can quite literally restore them to the state they were in within hours of their death from the NAS. If my house is hit by a tornado and my NAS dies, my data is safely encrypted in an external location. I’ve lost nothing. If my NAS, devices, and Wasabi’s data center are all hit by tornadoes at the same time we have bigger problems to worry about. If that ridiculous scenario happened your server would not be immune either.
I’m not seeing the advantage of your rented server vs having backups in the cloud. Is it because the server will keep running? But if you’ve lost your devices in a fire you still can’t access it whether it’s running or not. When you replace your device you can then connect to your server, but I can simply download my data again. HyperBackup Explorer is available for every platform and can do a full restore back to a NAS, or individual file downloads for anything else.
This article, as much as I agree with it, conflates cloud hosting and remote-only software design. Cloud hosting really is a prison, but mostly for developers that are lured by its convenience and then become dependent on its abstractions. What we experience today in most mainstream software isn’t necessarily coupled to cloud hosting, but is instead a conscious product design choice and business strategy to deny users power and control of their data. In short, cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP are doing to software companies what those companies are doing to us. There is a way to use shared data centers without this kind of software design philosophy. As mobile continues to dominate, the solution we need likely involves remote servers but with a model that treats them with skepticism and caution, allowing data portability and redundancy across a variety of vendors. I should be able to attach a few hosting services to a software experience I use and transfer my data between them easily. The idea that local-first software is “freed from worrying about backends, servers, and [hosting costs]” is misleading, since my local device has to become the client and/or server if there is any connectivity happening over the internet. Wresting control of our data from the dominant software companies will require creating experiences that are not only different, but better, and doing that with a mobile phone passing between cell towers functioning as the server is a tall order. We have grown to expect more than intermittent connectivity with conflict resolution. Nonetheless, we absolutely should not accept the current remote-only software paradigm, but instead need to devise better ways to abstract how remote hosts are inhabited and create a simple multi-host option that is intuitive for consumers.
Jesus Christ, the usability nightmare of this website is worse than the goofy animated GIF they think is an exaggeration.
www.wired.com##.sticky-box to get rid of the autoplaying video go fuck yourselves,www.wired.com##.journey-unit__container to get rid of the assorted gigantic flyover bullshit.
Use open-source software! Do not rely on “someone else’s computer”. Build your own locally hosted cloud! If you can use open-source hardware when doing so: awesome. If not, make at least sure that everything needed to run the system is open.
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That graphic is dope!
I felt this “prison” very strongly with iCloud. Don’t get me wrong, I think iCloud functions exceptionally well. It’s an extremely well integrated cloud and works seamlessly with all Apple products. It’s just that after a while I start to realize just how much of my life was sitting on Apple servers and what a dependency I had on Apple, hoping they are the good guy (narrator: they were not, in fact, the good guy) or at least, not as bad as the next best option (I feel Google has legitimately become evil at this point). I was constantly reading about security and getting myself worried, etc.
Finally I just bought a NAS. Synology is my current choice, but use whatever you prefer. A NAS can replicate anything the “cloud” can do, it’s faster, it’s safer, it doesn’t rely on the good graces of any cloud provider. YOU hold the access to your data. As it should be. I still use the “cloud” for my backups with HyperBackup sending encrypted backups to Wasabi, but that is a different matter. Even if Wasabi decided to be evil, my data is encrypted before it ever leaves the NAS and Wasabi could never see my raw data like Apple/Google can.
The only thing holding people back from this, I guess, is price. Apple charges $0.99/month for 500gigs, while just the NAS itself with no drives will cost you several hundred. But man, not being worried about the latest cloud drama, government overreach, privacy scandals, etc is worth every cent. A Synology NAS with Tailscale is just about the safest place to put my data. All the Snyology mobile apps even pass the gf test for features and ease of use. I recommend a small 2-bay NAS to everyone I can.
Turn off the cloud, and take your data back.
But the NAS is in your house… which basically means if it gets flooded/burns down all your data is gone too.
I already have my data on my PC, a second backup inside the same house isn’t worth that much. But instead of relying on a cloud service I just rent a virtual server (for various things) and use Seafile to keep my data in sync.
PC breaks? House burns down? My data is on my own server in a datacenter. My server gets cancelled? My data is on my PCs.
So even with your NAS you are 100% reliant on a cloud backup still, so why did you get the NAS when you already have a copy of your data on your devices?
I don’t really understand your comment.
PC breaks? House burns down? My data is encrypted in a datacenter. My account gets cancelled? My data is on my NAS.
I don’t store much data on my PCs or devices at all. Any data that is there I treat as transient. The NAS acts as permanent storage. So if the devices die, I can quite literally restore them to the state they were in within hours of their death from the NAS. If my house is hit by a tornado and my NAS dies, my data is safely encrypted in an external location. I’ve lost nothing. If my NAS, devices, and Wasabi’s data center are all hit by tornadoes at the same time we have bigger problems to worry about. If that ridiculous scenario happened your server would not be immune either.
I’m not seeing the advantage of your rented server vs having backups in the cloud. Is it because the server will keep running? But if you’ve lost your devices in a fire you still can’t access it whether it’s running or not. When you replace your device you can then connect to your server, but I can simply download my data again. HyperBackup Explorer is available for every platform and can do a full restore back to a NAS, or individual file downloads for anything else.
This article, as much as I agree with it, conflates cloud hosting and remote-only software design. Cloud hosting really is a prison, but mostly for developers that are lured by its convenience and then become dependent on its abstractions. What we experience today in most mainstream software isn’t necessarily coupled to cloud hosting, but is instead a conscious product design choice and business strategy to deny users power and control of their data. In short, cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP are doing to software companies what those companies are doing to us. There is a way to use shared data centers without this kind of software design philosophy. As mobile continues to dominate, the solution we need likely involves remote servers but with a model that treats them with skepticism and caution, allowing data portability and redundancy across a variety of vendors. I should be able to attach a few hosting services to a software experience I use and transfer my data between them easily. The idea that local-first software is “freed from worrying about backends, servers, and [hosting costs]” is misleading, since my local device has to become the client and/or server if there is any connectivity happening over the internet. Wresting control of our data from the dominant software companies will require creating experiences that are not only different, but better, and doing that with a mobile phone passing between cell towers functioning as the server is a tall order. We have grown to expect more than intermittent connectivity with conflict resolution. Nonetheless, we absolutely should not accept the current remote-only software paradigm, but instead need to devise better ways to abstract how remote hosts are inhabited and create a simple multi-host option that is intuitive for consumers.
Jesus Christ, the usability nightmare of this website is worse than the goofy animated GIF they think is an exaggeration.
www.wired.com##.sticky-boxto get rid of the autoplaying video go fuck yourselves,www.wired.com##.journey-unit__containerto get rid of the assorted gigantic flyover bullshit.Use open-source software! Do not rely on “someone else’s computer”. Build your own locally hosted cloud! If you can use open-source hardware when doing so: awesome. If not, make at least sure that everything needed to run the system is open.