the readme uses paulgraham.com as an example (which is text articles mostly) and I never use "Save As" for a web page (for the reasons the author states), I always just print as PDF and save the PDF file.
for an entire website though of many pages I can see this can be useful.
I agree with this. AI is a tool and amplifier. If one is already disciplined and strong-minded and has clear meaning and purpose in their life, AI is a very powerful aid in accomplishing missions. But I'm afraid most people in the world are not like that, too.
- at the first layer, people (even mainstream folks) hear about openclaw and what it "can" do, gives them amazement and think they want to try (somewhat like chatgpt itself did a few years ago). the github stars on the main repo can come from that. people think of the potentials, want to do something with it
- most people who actually set up an openclaw, don't actually have legitimate and substantial use cases of it. I'd wager >90% of them end up setting up something basic. the gmail/search/etc "pedestrian connectors" you mentioned is a good indicator that people are doing pretty basic stuff they could've used other tools for. they use openclaw for it for a variety of reasons, maybe they haven't heard of the other tools, or they think openclaw is novelty tech, etc.
- the skills has way fewer installs and stars than the main repo because setting up an openclaw by itself is hard enough and most people probably don't understand why they need skills or what they use it for. I actually barely understand it myself either.
- also, the high number of stars indicate most people see it and think it's cool and want to try it out, but never end up doing it. as an example, in a tech co of 200~ people, maybe 10 people will have tried actually installing openclaw and using it. most will have heard of it and maybe starred it but never had time or bothered trying.
- most people try openclaw for a bit and realize actually how expensive it is to run. to do some basic cron job you're easily using a few dollars a day in API costs. $3/day doesn't sound like a lot and sounds like coffee money but you soon realize that's equal to a $100/mo subscription (assuming you're using raw API per token pricing and not some flat monthly plan). it really isn't a toy but most people who try it treat it like a toy and it's way too expensive for that. properly set up, it really should be a virtual assistant for a busy business owner. you have to get enough value out of it to be worth its price in tokens.
all in all, at this point in its ease of use, it really is niche tech, that somehow made it into mainstream consciousness, but mainstream is realizing it's not for them, after trying it.
It would seem that way for sure, if it was just a random anon posting it, but the person you're replying to is the creator of Redis so I feel it's more likely a genuine opinion/experience rather than a Claude ad...
If I remember correctly (it has been a while since I looked), Hetzner although is a lot cheaper on the price sheet, they're European region by default and then if you look to get US region servers at Hetzner, the pricing is a lot higher and similar to Digital Ocean. Is that still the case?
For OP though who is a Turkey-based company and want European region servers anyway, it might make sense.
Hah I don't know if your msg is a "show me the script so I know where the security holes are so I can hack it" or just genuinely want a setup script for yourself to use.
But either way, nowadays it's trivial to ask Cursor/Claude Code to write you such a shell script.
The personality part, wow I thought I was the only one since no one else seems to have mentioned it anywhere. I agree.
During initial setup it even asked how you want its personality to be, I said upbeat and cheery. I know, I know, cliche for AI chatbots, but I kinda like it that way. But after that setup, it was nothing like it. Everything it says is just matter-of-fact-ly/stoic. That wouldn't be so bad if it didn't also have this quirk where if you point out its mistakes, it keeps saying it'll fix it, but it still does not work right the next time. It just keeps reassuring you it'll be fine, in that stoic way, and then it's not fine. That's enough to drive me nuts.
I got used to it now though and I don't get mad at it or scold it. I just learned to work with its quirks and still get tasks accomplished.
I think this is a pretty common experience with setting up openclaw to do useful work. Both the unreliability as well as all the reassuring you it fixed some stuff but not really.
I use it, it works well for a certain limited category of tasks once you've set it up properly, it's not as easy and straightforward as it seems, but once you've learned its quirks you can make it work.
The category of task I have it do is basically the pattern of "scrape some certain websites on a regular schedule, do some light data processing/understanding/analyzing, report the result to me [all or sometimes only when there is something worth mentioning]".
You could simulate the same things with cron jobs on a server and some scripts and LLM APIs. But having Openclaw do it does make it a little bit easier to set up and make changes.
The initial setup was a bit more time consuming than I thought it would be. I set it up on a VPS, I already have scripts to set up a server and tighten security normally, so I could just use that, but people who don't already have that stuff would have to do that first. Then the Openclaw setup and configuration was like a 20~30 step situation, lots of API keys to get, etc. I opted for Slack over Telegram or Discord (I don't use either of those regularly) and you pretty much have to set up a new slack bot app yourself (you follow their listed steps, but there's still hiccups here and there), you have to debug and solve issues etc. to get through it all.
Then even after all the initial setup is done, it takes some time to learn and get used to its quirks and behaviors, at the beginning there's just a lot of frustration about things it can't do, or things it says it can or will do, but doesn't.
I think you're not wrong and I also think the author is not wrong -- and this just may be how technology/civilization/humans are going to change inevitably?
For example a possibly trajectory might be that many years in the future because human thinking has degraded due to AI-assisted cognition, most people will get a chip implant and AI-assistance becomes integrated with the brain. Basically same pattern as most everything else -- technology augments solve the new reality. I'm not saying this will happen, but just a possible outcome of this.
I don't know about any of the drama happening, but if LibreOffice ceases to exist, there's still Softmaker FreeOffice as a free & local option. It's nothing fancy, but works for the times when I have to use one. I'm not against cloud products as you are, but it's nice being able to do stuff locally sometimes, it's just more convenient.
The way I approach having LLM help with writing documents like this is to have it help me clean up my writing, not write the substance of it.
I tend to do extensive research (that process in itself would involve LLMs too, sure) in a tech plan, a product spec, etc. and usually end up with a really solid idea in my head and like say, five critical key points about this tech plan or product spec that I absolutely must convey in this document.
Then I basically "brain dump" my critical key points (including everything about it, background/reasoning, why this or that way, what's counterintuitive about it, why is this point important, etc.) in pretty messy writing (but hitting all the important talking points) to a LLM prompt, asking it to produce the document I need (be it tech plan, product spec, whatever) and ask it to write it based on my points.
The resulting document has all the important substance on it this way.
If you use LLM to produce documents like this by a way of a prompt like "Write a tech plan for the product feature XYZ I want to build", you're going to get a lot of fluff. No substance, plenty of mistakes, wrong assumptions, etc.
Wow, I did not know about this Feeds page despite being a daily FB user for 20 years (yes, to the ridicule of most people, I know). Thanks for pointing this out. I wish this was the default homepage or at least a way to set it as default.
This is only tangentially related to your post at all, but as a budget-conscious shopper, I've come to realize that in America, there is usually a retail shop or two locally that consistently has the best deal for a category of things. Don't get me wrong, I still have to buy from Amazon for a lot of really miscellaneous things, but I think I manage to find good local deals (better than Amazon in most cases) for most category of items I buy, more so than most people. You just have to put in the work to do the research to find where those are (a lot of times that's about going to all these stores often enough that you get an understanding).
In your example of sneakers, Adidas/Footlocker/Dicks are not the places to go for me. Here in California there is a store called Big5 Sporting Goods that consistently has incredible prices (on sale or not). In the past decade I've pretty much never bought shoes anywhere else; most sneakers or hiking shoes I've bought are under $35 and they are the most comfortable shoes I've tried anywhere. There may be a similar store in whatever state you're in.
For clothes and some home goods items, similarly I wouldn't go to brand name stores at the malls; Ross and Marshall always have the best deals. For random home goods, Daiso (an Asian/Japanese brand store) which, fortunately for myself, has a lot of stores in California, has tons of super affordable options, as it's basically a Japanese dollar store. Then there are random things that Target has the best deals for; and other random things that Walmart has the best deals for (I know, buying from Walmart is not much better than buying on Amazon).
My main point is, you don't always have to resort to Amazon for budget, you just have to do enough research work to find out where else to go.
for an entire website though of many pages I can see this can be useful.