2 reasons!

Most important reason is to link membership.

Second is to prevent abuse for some of my features. Think of it like my poor mans recaptcha.

I can see why you were confused. Local in this case really meant there’s no uploading of videos. Render, editing, processing all done on your computer. Which also meant that speed of the app could vary depending on if you use it on your Apple Watch vs gaming pc. Hope that helps!