Picture the early days of the PC - local models are like that. While there are scattered groups of hobbyists who tinker endlessly to get a few lights blinking, almost everyone doing “real work” is using a large, expensive, centralized product. Despite the exponential performance curve of smaller models (not to mention the rapidly increasing cost of using frontier models), we are all still stuck using mainframes and minicomputers. Why? Because few of us have the time and resources to build a computer from raw components.

The problem with local models isn't that they are local, it's that they are not integrated. Hobbyist testing the latest local models are great (thank you!), but we also need someone building the Apple I.