Based on the blog, it sounds like he wants to downloaded RSS feeds to the user's device, and not store them on his server to speed up development (all those complaints about FAANG being able to develop at web scale and him not wanting to run a backend).
Then, if the user clears cache or changes computers, they lose the stuff they were following and have to wait for new items, but it's not the end of the world. They might even expect it if you name/describe the app a certain way.
E.g. if you download an app called "Podcast Downloader" that says it just downloads any new podcasts from feeds you follow for your later offline consumption on your current device - you might not expect a podcast on your phone to magically jump to your desktop without a re-download from the original site.
Seems like it could be a valid trade off if it lets a front end only web dev publish apps he couldn't publish otherwise because he can't/won't do backend. Storing user media on the backend is not cheap. The company I'm at has spent months of developer time moving over from Google to Amazon, for example, just for infra cost improvements that come from serving terrabytes of data off one instead of the other.
Then, if the user clears cache or changes computers, they lose the stuff they were following and have to wait for new items, but it's not the end of the world. They might even expect it if you name/describe the app a certain way.
E.g. if you download an app called "Podcast Downloader" that says it just downloads any new podcasts from feeds you follow for your later offline consumption on your current device - you might not expect a podcast on your phone to magically jump to your desktop without a re-download from the original site.
Seems like it could be a valid trade off if it lets a front end only web dev publish apps he couldn't publish otherwise because he can't/won't do backend. Storing user media on the backend is not cheap. The company I'm at has spent months of developer time moving over from Google to Amazon, for example, just for infra cost improvements that come from serving terrabytes of data off one instead of the other.