There are many desktop applications that generate small amounts of data that at present cannot easily be synced or shared across computes without the use of a third party service. Firefox sync, for example, is notoriously hard to get running nicely. In fact, most desktop applications lack third-party syncing functionality all together.

Imagine instead a world where syncing settings, credentials, bookmarks, shortcuts, rss feed subscriptions is as easy as connecting an application to a self-hosted server with a simple database attached. Offline and no third-parties involved. It is incredible that this is still an unsolved problem.

All that is needed for this to take of is that one of the major open source desktop environments integrates an open protocol where any application developer can add support for their applications independently. Before long, someone will offer a hosted service, completing the circle.