If you want an easier-to-use alternative to SmartThings, then look at Hubitat. It has local processing (internet connectivity not required) and it easier to use for people who aren't tech wizards.

I am a software developer and I was hired for my current job to bring back all development from India. I was tasked with bringing all development back in-house because the offshore projects were behind schedule and suspect quality, not to mention the communication issues.

What we do now is do a combination of in-house development and rural sourcing, which is hiring U.S. developers in the midwest and midsouth in areas of lower cost of living. They are more expensive than offshore developers, but much cheaper than developers in major cities and these rural developers are in the same timezone.

I think you will see more and more rural sourcing cutting in to the offshoring of jobs. I don't think there will ever be a full reversal of offshoring jobs, just that rural sourcing will become more and more viable and desirable.

Perhaps I am being a paranoid security freak, but directory upload sounds like a dangerous feature.

I'm glad I am not the only one who found it painful to read the transcript. I tried telling myself that the chat reads the way it does because English is not their first language. English or not, there seemed to be a lot of crosstalk and irrelevant chit chat. So much so that I don't see how they can really accomplish much of anything in such a format. I suppose that is why they were talking about geting a face-to-face meeting together.

I remember back when outsourcing and offshorting really started to ramp up and the whole mentality was, "The U.S. will become a nation of intellectual property holders and high-level managers while the rest of the world does the grunt work".

China is known for making knock-offs and stealing intellectual property. If China controls the majority of manufacturing and "grunt" work, then they ultimately have complete access to everything and nothing will really stop them from yanking the rug out from under the idiot outsourcers who didn't see it coming and assumed they could maintain all the power and wealth without doing any of the real work.

Who run Bartertown?