Honestly, if I felt like starting a company (and I REALLY don't) it's the perfect time to create a local device that acts as my both my online cloud and assistant. Maybe it's a companion device to Apple/Google Home/Home Assistant. It seems so blindingly obvious I can't believe there aren't 10 companies doing it now.
It will start off a bit geeky andlikely won't be a consumer device initially. Too many barriers to make it interoperate easily.
But things are so moving in that direction.
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@scottjenson I have limits on what I can discuss, but a company I worked for with extensive hardware staff experience tried to push for something very much like what you describe. Not a single VC cared, hardware investments are entirely dead right now. SAAS, AI, or nothing.
You’d need the cash to do it yourself or a private investor that believes in your vision.
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@ryne Not surprised. I realize the "kit model" is likely a no go for consumers. But to use it a stepping stone might be worth it. Remember the first Apple was a kit!
I feel that cost of both hardware and software has fallen that putting something like this together SHOULDN'T require millions to get off the ground.
Biggest issue is having the software actually work well. That would require some work...
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@scottjenson Still costs a lot to do — more, at least, than a handful folk that just wanna build cool, fun things can afford. If your business model isn’t some grift for a Facebook-scale fiction, no one with the dough to make it happen cares anymore.
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@ryne The same thing was said about Linux...
I'm not trying to sealion you. Your point is valid. You just sound resigned. We're not going to find our way out of this unless we at least try.
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@scottjenson You’re not wrong! Just a little too easy to feel resigned with the direction of tech right now, and I am deeply guilty of that. I hope I can rediscover a more optimistic attitude about technology, but our aggregste priorities about it seem so twisted now.
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@scottjenson @ryne I think it needs close platform integration. I would be more than happy, when Apple would sell me a Mac mini with decent storage, running some kind of personalised AI.
The Mac mini “knows” everything about me. I would be able to ask my watch, phone, HomePod, TV anything about my personal documents, calendar, mails, etc. and get personal answers by the Mac mini. No cloud, no privacy issues, no monthly fees.
[#]HomeServer #HomeCloud
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@tobias @ryne but is Apple the type of company to offer that type is no strings use of your data?
The only safe long term solution is local actions on local data (with an option for cloud services)
I realize this isn't easy...
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@scottjenson without a subscription model and perennial revenue, they - investors- won't care, sadly
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@patrick_h_lauke But that's exactly it. I think it's time we explore models that don't require that. Break the model, just sell the hardware/software as a one time fee. Don't create huge share holder value.
It's basically "sustainable business". Anything else isn't practical in the long term.
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@scottjenson why would I need another device, besides my phone, to have a local assistant that can connect to the cloud? It sounds like an app, or are some hardware capabilities required my phone can't handle?
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@scottjenson related https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42467194
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@scottjenson seems like a good candidate for the #Jetson Orin Nano! I think you’re right about local, private LLM infrastructure being an untapped market. Somebody’s just gotta make it more accessible for the layman
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@whil Someone needs to make the "mac of online servers". There are promising open source solutions like @nextcloud but they are hindered by the lack of consumer friendly UX(which is hard! I'm not faulting them). Of course, the actual assistant is also a big ask. But I expect that is going to improve rapidly.
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@scottjenson @whil @nextcloud If you have suggestions Scott, our design team is always looking for feedback and contributions:
https://nextcloud.com/design/ 😀
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@viktor @scottjenson I haven’t tried nextcloud yet, but after a Quick Look™ it seems like something that I’d be interested in! Let’s see how long it takes me to get something usable spun up and what exactly these ux pain points are
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@viktor @whil @nextcloud I just installed it on pikapod. Overall, it was up and running fairly easily! However, I was stumped at something trivial: the logon screen.
I was completely stumped when I saw this, wondering what my account name and password were, going to your documentation, faq, etc. Only to sheepishly realize this was the CREATE screen! While I was 'wrong', this is an easy fix with a stronger header text and putting some default 'hint text' in each field.
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@viktor @whil @nextcloud This screenshot is AFTER I figured it out. Before it was all blank, I didn't even SEE the header text. This should be a nearly painless fix as it's just changing/adding some text to the screen.
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@scottjenson @whil @nextcloud great feedback. Let me tag @jancborchardt 😀
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@viktor @whil @nextcloud @jancborchardt From the PikaPod setup, the first NextCloud screen was the 'which apps do you want' which seemed a bit odd. This was the second and totally stopped me in my tracks. ("how did I miss the account name?")
There are many possible solutions here. For example, changing the labels to be "New admin account name" and "New admin password" might do it. With a "Create account" button, etc. Just don't make it look EXACTLY like a log on screen!
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@scottjenson @viktor @whil @nextcloud agree that in trying to make installation look very simple and approachable, it ended up looking too much like a login screen. Wording fix submitted with https://github.com/nextcloud/server/pull/49962, thanks a lot for the feedback! :)
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@jancborchardt @viktor Wow, that was quick, Thank you! What interests me is something I'm sure interests you: how to make this truly dead simple for anyone (Although I expect your target user is a bit more sophisticated)
I'm generally happy with the PikaPods approach as it appears inexpensive (<$5/month) and was fairly easy to set up (the subdomain wasn't bad but likely hard for novices)
A local hw device is the long term goal but clearly more of a stretch to pull off
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@scottjenson @viktor local hardware devices do exist :) https://nextcloud.com/devices/
We even created the "Nextcloud Box" back in 2016 in collaboration with Western Digital Labs and Canonical – a local hw piece will always be a bit nerdy though, and my personal worry has always been how to properly do backups in that scenario. Lots of hosters (like with Wordpress, Drupal, etc) and partnerships with bigger hosting companies is a nice middle ground to make it accessible to many people while being useful
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@scottjenson @viktor and an even easier approach we pushed is "Simple Signup": https://nextcloud.com/sign-up/
Here we simply pick providers which fulfill some requirements, and can then integrate this as a "Sign up" link in our apps even though we do not do any centralized hosting.
I wrote an article with details about this at https://opensource.com/article/20/9/decentralization-signup
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