Discussion
i know that realistically the only way to have a job that does not involve AI is to start a boutique software company that specializes in replacing your day-2-day software (like Google, Apple, etc) with manually written code
the problem becomes that there is no real guarantee that people have any interest in subscribing/funding this kind of work
but the venn diagram for people that are willing to pay for this and the ones that would be interested dont intersect enough for it to be viable
i would love to dedicate my life to make software that actual human beings want to use, but until i have either a subscription service that provides a living off of paying users, or a patreon/ko-fi/other subscription platform full of people willing to support me, there is no reason to take such a risk
is it realistic to spend my free time trying to build something like this with the pipe dream of being able to make a living off of it?
im not sure
genuine question to you, the reader:
is there a piece of software, or a service that you would pay a subscription for, that you do not have access to right now? is there a tool that got bit by the AI bug and you want to get rid off and you're looking for an alternative?
please comment and let me know, i'm wondering what people are even looking for
@bram I was thinking of a simplified home hosting solution, one that requires little maintainance and hardware, but it's modular.
@portaloffreedom yeah, i like that idea too, esp since it actually solves privacy and data ownership
problem becomes that for it to be a good product you need to be able to sell it with hardware as well, which would mean a one time purchase + subscription which most people would certainly be allergic to
then again, if its substantially cheaper than other cloud options maybe it would be worth something? but again, its tough competing with the existing convenience
@portaloffreedom perhaps if the USP was "stop datacenters by claiming back your little piece of the internet, with 100% privacy" it could convince a lot of people, but hosting personal data, even indirectly like this for people is a hassle, considering the security implications and all of the other logistical problems
but cool to think about regardless!
@bram it should probably be on the model of pay for zero hassle device, free if you build it yourself with spare parts and old computers.
I was also thinking of having it stackable hardware, one stack is one unit. Units can be compute heavy or storage heavy or whatever is needed.
Want a nas? Buy (or build) a storage unit and assign it to NAS service.
@bram but this is more of a hardware company than software company.
Beyond "buy a cheap used desktop and install Linux", what would be needed? (Asking sincerely; this overlaps with my interests and even a little bit with code I'm working on right now.)
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