SaaSS-quatch
Wed, 29 Oct 2025
Gather 'round the digital campfire, fellow adventurers, and listen to a tale of a creature that haunts the misty jungles of the internet. It's a beast of immense power and seductive allure. It promises a world without installations, a life free from the burden of updates, and the power of the "cloud" at your fingertips. They call it the SaaSS-quatch.
I've spent years tracking this elusive beast. Today, I share my field guide with you. To understand the SaaSS-quatch is to understand the greatest threat to software freedom in the modern era. SaaSS, or Service as a Software Substitute, is the practice of using a service on someone else's server to do your own computing. And it's a monster.
The SaaSS-quatch dwells exclusively in the ethereal realm known as "the cloud." This is a mysterious, foggy place where your data goes in, but control and ownership never come out. Its territory is marked by sleek, minimalist login pages that promise simplicity but hide a labyrinth of dependencies.
This creature has a voracious and specific appetite: it feeds on your data and your freedom. Every spreadsheet you calculate in its online office suite, every photo you render through its cloud editor, every business metric you analyze on its dashboard is a delicious morsel. It also sustains itself on a steady diet of your recurring subscription fees, a tribute you must pay to keep the beast from devouring your access.
The SaaSS-quatch hunts not with claws, but with comfort. Its song promises freedom from friction: "No installs, no updates, no IT headaches," it coos. "Work from anywhere, collaborate instantly, let us handle everything." Enchanted by these harmonies, users surrender their computing power piece by piece. Tasks once run on their own machines - editing, rendering, analysis - now unfold on distant servers, invisible yet inescapable. The more convenience they accept, the more deeply the creature entwines itself around their workflows, until autonomy fades beneath the hum of the data center.
Once you step into its territory, the SaaSS-quatch begins to weave its web. Your projects take shape in proprietary formats, your workflows twist around its APIs, and your data sinks into databases only it can decipher. When you try to leave, you find that the exits are narrow and lined with thorns. Exporting your work is like packing a suitcase that tries to swallow your clothes - every file, every configuration resists escape. What began as convenience becomes captivity, and the web tightens the more you struggle.
The SaaSS-quatch is a master of disguise. The interface you learned last week may be gone tomorrow, replaced by a new, "more intuitive" design that hides all the functions you actually use. Features appear and vanish like phantoms in the fog. This isn't a sign of progress; it is a display of absolute power. It reminds you, constantly, that you're on its territory, playing by its rules.
An encounter with the SaaSS-quatch is more dangerous than a run-in with its furry, forest-dwelling namesake. The threat is not to your physical person, but to your digital soul.
With traditional proprietary software, you're given a black box. You can't see inside it, but at least you have the box. You can run it on your own machine. You can poke, prod, and even reverse-engineer it to understand its secrets and make a free replacement. With SaaSS, you don't even get the box. The software runs on a distant, unknown server. You have no access, no code, no binary. You have nothing. You have ceded total control of your computing to a third party.
This is a more profound and absolute loss of freedom than anything that came before it. You can't study the software. You can't change it. You can't even be sure which version you're using, or whether it's the same as the one your colleague is using. You're entirely at the service provider's mercy.
Furthermore, the SaaSS-quatch is the ultimate spy. There's no need for it to install malicious spyware on your machine. The service is the spyware. To do your computing, it must have your data. It sees everything you do, every keystroke you make. Your privacy isn't just violated; it's a precondition of the service.
How does one defend against such a creature? The answer lies in the principles of the free software movement.
The most effective defense is to stay out of its territory. Do your computing on your own computer.
Instead of using the SaaSS-quatch's web-based word processor, use a free software application like LibreOffice that runs locally on your machine. You control it, you own the data, and it can't be taken away from you.
For tasks that require a server, such as file sharing or collaborative editing, don't wander into the SaaSS-quatch's forest. Become a digital homesteader and self-host. Set up your own server with free software like Nextcloud. It's like building your own cabin in the wilderness - it takes work, but it's yours, and it's safe.
The SaaSS-quatch isn't a myth. It's real and dangerous. It preys on desires for a simpler digital life, but the convenience it offers is a gilded cage. It represents the final stage in the erosion of user control, a world where we own nothing and are happy about it.
Don't fall for the siren's song. The true path to empowerment lies not in substituting our software, but in liberating it. Choose freedom. Choose control. Choose to run your own programs. The most powerful creature in the digital world isn't the SaaSS-quatch, but a user in control of their own machine.