A service has constant administration costs which are paid by the service provider.

A library instead moves these costs to the users of the library.

For any developer with limited resources,

this means a library (where viable) can provide the same functionality to the user,

at a lower cost to the developer than a service.

By library, I mean any software... See more

Cloud apps like Google Docs and Trello are popular because they enable real-time collaboration with colleagues, and they make it easy for us to access our work from all of our devices. However, by centralizing data storage on servers, cloud apps also take away ownership and agency from users. If a service shuts down, the software stops functioning,... See more