> More and more I start to realize that cost saving is a small problem for local LLMs. If it is too slow, it becomes unusable, so much that you might as well use public LLM endpoints. Unless you really care about getting things done locally without sending information to another server.

There is another aspect to consider, aside from privacy.

These models are trained by downloading every scrap of information from the internet, including the works of many, many authors who have never consented to that. And they for sure are not going to get a share of the profits, if there is every going to be any. If you use a cloud provider, you are basically saying that is all fine. You are happy to pay them, and make yourself dependent on their service, based on work that wasn't theirs to use.

However, if you use a local model, the authors still did not give consent, but one could argue that the company that made the model is at least giving back to the community. They don't get any money out of it, and you are not becoming dependent on their hyper capitalist service. No rent-seeking. The benefits of the work are free to use for everyone. This makes using AI a little more acceptable from a moral standpoint.