This is exactly how I use Syncthing, and as the author says, it sure would be nice if more things were just files. Really, most things are stored locally as files, but not always in a way that plays nice with syncing. Like, I can sync my Firefox profile between machines (it’s all in one folder), but I found it prone to conflicts, with little to resolve those conflicts.

In a similar vein, local-first apps built with Conflict-free replicated data types (CRDTs) can be another way to avoid server dependency. I haven’t seen any significant apps built this way yet (just occasional blog posts about it). I imagine the CRDT approach would work better for individual apps, since conflict resolution can be written in a way that works best for a given app, but I also imagine that such apps would not play nicely with a generic sync solution like Syncthing.

Yes I know Syncthing but I cannot aford to have the same 200GB of files on 4 different devices. I need the space.

It feels like the author could become a Plan9 fan in no time.

I use syncthing to sync music, notes and pictures between my phone and my PC. It’s ridiculously efficient and it feels like using your devices’ networking features in a reasonable way at last. It’s so simple and feels so good. I fucking love it.

This is a vision I could get behind, and I already do a ton of self-hosting for that stuff! The theoretical simplification, easier conceptual understanding, and easier portability would all be very nice plusses over what we have now.

Buy it does feel a bit to me like creating just one more perfect standard, and then we will have our fracultured world, but with 14 standards…