alt Hacker NewsThere will always be something better on big data center hardware.
However, small models are continuing to improve at the same time that large RAM capacity computing hardware is becoming cheaper. These two will eventually intersect at a point where local performance is good enough and fast enough.
If you've tried gpt-oss:120b and Moonshot AIs Kimi Dev, it feels like this is getting closer to reality. Mac Studios, while expensive are now offering 512gb of usable RAM as well. The tooling available to running local models is also becoming more accessible than even just a year ago.