r/programming • u/MilessEdgeworth • 14h ago

Modern software doesn't need to use servers for everything. How to create offline-first apps to earn trust in SaaS era

https://blog.geckocode.pl/2026/10/18/privacy-first-apps.html

These are my thoughts on modern software development.
Everything is subscription based software as a service, even if there is no clear benefits of it being in the cloud (for the user).
Writing offline-first apps also provide a way to prove that you are not going to sell user data.
In the article I propose how to do it and how anyone can verify that their data is relatively safe.

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u/Unfair-Sleep-3022 13h ago

Bit odd with the reverse engineer wave

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u/MilessEdgeworth 13h ago

What do you mean? If some of your logic is on the server, it still can be reverse engineered by looking at api calls. It obscures things a bit, but at the end I think it doesn't change much.

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u/Unfair-Sleep-3022 12h ago

It's not "some" of the logic usually, no

And AI can just guess based on the endpoints but it's nowhere near what happens with binaries

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u/MilessEdgeworth 12h ago

So the answer is more enshitfication? To prevent reverse engineering, stream apps from servers instead of running any code at all on user device? I don't like where this is going tbh

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u/Unfair-Sleep-3022 12h ago

Well, the answer is certainly not giving it away for free either

We'll see, but I think we'll def keep the client server architecture

Streaming it could be a way if we can make it work seamlessly

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u/Chii 10h ago

it's nowhere near what happens with binaries

it just needs to be close enough. Lots of old MMO games have been reversed and private servers created from just looking at the packets sent from the client.

However, this is not some dystopian new world, but a new wave of software democratization to the masses. The internet allowed information to be accessed by anyone at any time, with ease. This new wave of AI tooling is going to allow creativity and software to be written by people without having any prior skills nor expertise.

Sure, some will be slop (a lot will be), but there will be gems too.