Back and forth and back again.
Too many years ago to count, I set up a server under my desk. It was initially intended to provide better availability and control than my school's email system, and ended up serving homepages and files for folks as well. It was also a time when understanding a particular technology meant I could provide a real benefit to those around me with other priorities and skills.
Time went on, and the cloud began to take shape. Like many I adapted along with it taking advantage of a better cost profile with less hassle. Things like availability, bandwidth, data durability & security all started to painfully converge on what was really a hobby. Things got serious, and it really stopped being fun in that form.
Over time I went further, resulting in basically a custom domain mapped to Google Workspace. An amazing hands-off solution by every measure. Scalability, core security, availability -- not even a question.
Much like the internet starting to gain traction and embedding itself into more and more components of life, I see a similar approach with shared vs personal & private AI solutions. I again see so many good people (you know, those with other priorities and skills) unwittingly and in some cases unwillingly handing their very identity and personal life over to unreliable organizations.
We're very much in the space now where a lot of the early complexity and pitfall of self-hosting have been addressed (it's never perfect, there's always something new to break) and the tools are coalescing to allow taking a new swing at something useful - the creation of a private AI platform. And now we have more places than ever to deploy - on a desk, private cloud, public cloud.
Models like Gemma 4 being released under the Apache 2.0 license will put pressure on more organizations to do the same. Tools like llama.cpp, LM Studio & OpenClaw are showing how easy (and dangerous if you're casual about it!) to build an actionable solution.
Unlike the 'many years ago' times mentioned above, today our sphere is filled with hundreds of YouTubers, Substackers and bloggers that show you the way. Yeah, I know email lists, IRC and BBS's served the same purpose - but the accessibility and ubiquity of it are a game-changer.
I'm not so much talking about tool-making as I am about tool-using. So here's wishing the best to those who are building privacy-first, secure solutions & giving it a crack. These times are special - take advantage of it.
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