> I believe the lack of popularity is more of an economics problem.
It's also a programming complexity problem.
A local-first app has to run on a zillion different configurations of hardware. A cloud-first app only has to run on a single configuration and the thing running on the user hardware is just a view into that singular cloud representation.
This is really not that much of a problem, most hardware differences are either irrelevant or easily abstracted away (if that isn't already done by the OS).
It's not easy, but if the money flowed that way devs would figure stuff out. As is, devs who may have an interest in working on it will simply be rejected.
It's also a programming complexity problem.
A local-first app has to run on a zillion different configurations of hardware. A cloud-first app only has to run on a single configuration and the thing running on the user hardware is just a view into that singular cloud representation.