2024 Year End Reflections

This year end I am mainly reflective the fact that I have awaked to become more & more privacy & security conscious (having swam the SaaS & online marketplace world for years) with my digital consumption - that means less appreciative of being hooked on platforms and B2C SaaS services for my digital consumptions.

Some of the few trends and software distribution model that I vouch for and incline towards are:

1. Kudos to Ente.io and such reimagining SaaS offerings with Privacy and security at the centre of their offering. This is made possible only through their Open Source first approach. I hope more and more apps follow suite.
2. Once.com pricing model for software distribution (back to the good old days, where we could buy software exe to install what you pay once and use - rather than tethered for SaaS platforms on perpetual subscriptions and always connected for sacrificing your privacy and security) - same there too - hope more & more vendors would follow suite.
3. Go open source & self-hosted for all my personal digital consumption - personal productivity tools, storage, photos, tasks etc. - quick pro tip here - my hack for my Mobile phone OS for best privacy results is that, I will install LineageOS on my Samsung android phone, & subscribe to Google Business workspace (which gives good privacy) - & get access to playstore.
4. Ruthless digital discipline and let silent mode be the default mode- to survive in a connected and notification overloaded world we live in - I am more and more internalising the truth outlined by Ben Kuhn, that - time is not our scarcest resource, but our attention is our scarcest resource that we need to carefully steward. This read is very effective for the some of the strategies to put in place to redeem your attention.

More ownership / agency, less 3rd party controls - is the bottom line.

Though some of my friends say Tesla is a great "out of the world" car driving experience - I dislike the fact that it is a "connected car", where I am giving up my privacy and control over to Tesla, what I want of my car - But if your objective is just getting from Point A to Point B - I rest my case.

Looking ahead - (somewhere in my online scrolling I read something to this effect) - in the world of AI, Open Source, & Self-Hosting - your legacy software licensing costing model wont sell anymore - instead, what it comes down to is your labour or dev cost (usually considered as indirect cost - in accounting terms), plus your margins becomes your economic baseline for software sales. Dev-as-service for better wording.

All this may sound quite absurdist, especially as our world is embarking big time on the AI journey - but I have hope for the future if more and more folks awaken to these disciplines and sensitivities for creating a better, meaningful and autonomy-to-the-end-user oriented digital world around us.

AI + Open Source - has the potential to be a powerful force in giving more agency & autonomy in the hands of the end-user to innovate and craft their personal digital tools, experiences - ushering in a new and safe era of creativity, innovation (without ones personal privacy & security being compromised)

One achievement I am very proud of in this year is that - I could shape a blog (that is pretty much my brain dump around my knowledge in the Open Source space) - where I cover most aspects of Open Source based IT & digital landscape being shaped. And proud to shape it as the premise on which I look forward to continue my career journey ahead in the coming years.

Read on - https://www.tacten.co/blog/case-for-open-source-sof/

Wish everyone in my LinkedIn circles - a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!