> And it does force you into some difficult choices.

I gots to know...

Just to be clear, the difficult choice is not whether to use OpenAi/Anthropic/Grok/... versus a local LLM.

The choice is whether to hang out with people with whom you can't be sure they don't have a Plaud/Pocket/.. in their literal pocket which is continuously listening.

Unfortunately the set of such people will eventually be shrinking more and more until eventually only a few tinfoil folks are left. Dystopian? Just think back w.r.t. continuous tracking by Google/Facebook/.. Unthinkable 30 years ago, total standard today. Try to count the fraction of your emails that don't actually reside on a MSFT or Google server because the other end has an account there. That fight is over. You can just as well join them.