I see tons of posts about #selfhosting here, and it makes sense. It’s a great option for people who can.
But this excludes the vast majority of regular people who do not have the technical skills to run a data center.
We owe it to everyone to make open cloud services that:
- do not put profit first
- do not “own” or “monetize” their users’ data
- resist enshitification by letting users take their data somewhere else
- are as easy and straightforward as the “closed” status quo
@benpate I think an analogy with cars is relevant. As cars are recognised as a necessity but a dangerous technology people are asked to learn and prove they know how to use it safely, law enforcement actually checks they do and punishes those who don't, and on the other hand cars are built such as one doesn't require a PhD to use it, and try to protect their user from doing stupid things. There is surely still a lot to improve about cars but comparatively Internet is still a prehistoric jungle.
You nailed it. Future historians will call us the "Proto Information Age" -- we who lived in the world of upheaval and change before the technology (and its real benefits) were worked out.
Likewise, the first hundred (or so?) years of the Industrial Age were the same. It _sucked_ for regular people until society and laws caught up with the new realities. That's where we are now :(
I hope we can nudge history toward a better future (and slightly more quickly, please)
@benpate There are some companies hosting #Nextcloud instances.
There is also #Proton that you may check out.
@t0maz Yeah, Proton is fantastic. I haven't dug into Nextcloud much, but have only heard good things about them.
And I remember seeing at least one hosting company that let you just click and config your own servers. This is very cool, but how much further could we push it?
Imagine extrapolating this setup to an exponentially easier workflow, one where all the hard techie stuff is abstracted away, and starting your own server was as easy (and non-technical) at starting a profile on Facebook.
@benpate You don't need technical skill to self host, you just need to find a person you trust who does. We don't need everyone self hosting, we need communities self hosting.
Yes. This times a thousand.
I'll add that communities may need more support in building and promoting open solutions. It would probably work to find case studies of the innovators who have already done this, to see what worked for them, and what forces helped/hindered their efforts.
Goofy nitpick:
Also, is it "self-hosting" if your neighbor is doing it for you, or is it now something else, like: "we-hosting"?
We need to regard our networks as essential societal infrastructure, same as transit or water mains, or educational institutions.
Equitable access is no different from a social responsibility to ensure minimally adequate shelter, or labour rights, or healthcare access.
In fact, it's probably a hell of a lot less complex and less expensive than those, it just takes a higher order of organizational will than the typical techno-libertarian sysadmin - wellmeaning as we are!
Yes. So much to agree with here.
I tend to think of technology as*so* complex.. but you're right. Even as "fiddly" as it can be, it's probably more deterministic than things like housing, healthcare, and labor -- which are far more human (and therefore more complex) than tech will ever be.
@benpate And we should aim and advocate for frugality. It’s the all-unlimited mindset that is key to keep people trapped with big tech. If you don’t monetize then keep costs low.
Like for email it should be fine to have a 250mb box on the server and have IMAP sync only the most recent while local client keeps archives forever.
@santi @benpate I moved to a family plan on Proton which has limits bigger than that and we went through the realization that we don't delete anything anymore. I spent a couple weeks deleting 26k emails which were almost entirely newsletters and such. Since moving I have been absolutely draconian in managing spam, newsletters and using the hide my mail features.
@benpate who does selfhost a data center? 😂
@roughnecks Probably not many, but I'd bet that most self-host-ers have most of the skills necessary.
It would be malpractice for me to run a data center, but I know how to configure routers, TCP/IP, DNS, and more. That's plenty more than most people, and it excludes them from the benefits of self-hosting.
@benpate I'm all for community hosting by groups of people and/or civil/civic society ngo's to provide the infrastructure.
@BjornW I was very motivated to try and get my neighborhood's >2000 people Facebook group on to an instance hosted by our neighborhood association.
Unfortunately, despite universal "I hate Facebook", no one would commit to moving 😓
For most people, switching represents work, and often their hatred of Facebook is not enough to offset that.
So switching from one general purpose site to another is a net negative. But they might move to something more specialized to their needs. For a neighborhood, something like Next Door (or even NodeBB) might make more sense.
When we're able to deliver ActivityPub applications that meed *specific* needs better than general purpose commercial services, then they'll switch.
@BjornW @benpate This is why we're trying to get https://henhouse.coop going to start small with static site hosting.
I just checked out your site and project. Very cool! I might ask you guys to help out with some work in Go, once I sort out my project list :)
