Discussion
Self-hosting is a dreadful choice for many people, for anything that they actually care about.
Annoyingly, *not* self-hosting stuff is also not a panacea, and generally entails picking the least worst option (which can be challenging in itself), and then understanding what one *still* needs to do to mitigate the risks of that choice.
There is no single good choice and - sadly - I do not see that changing any time soon.
I'd love to be wrong here.
I AM the undisputed tech nerd among my friends, and hosting SyncThing and Plex instances from a NAS i built, and buying a domain for https://salinesolutions.lol/, are the limits of my interest/ability curve.
I spent 2 months trying to figure out SSL certs for the login page of my NAS and finally decided that i didn't want to do networking as a full-time hobby.
i concur that self hosting for most people is a poor choice, if not actively dangerous, like trying to build your own car
@neil gonna suggest a new phrasing that *could* address this,
@neil I think services like https://www.pikapods.com/ are helpful to somewhat fill that gap, but some user expertise is still required.
Indeed. The average person does not know what a CPU core is, let alone how many cores they need to run a photo sharing server!
And the terms are, again, aimed at an experienced, savvy user.
@neil yes, that's true. One other option that I hope grows to be a easy solution for everyone are things like https://www.freedombox.org/#get
Maybe with all the layoffs due to "AI", we start seeing indie services providing 1:1 support and reliable floss devices. (one can dream...)
@neil The more I self-host, the happier and calmer I get. It was a little outside my comfort zone, but learning Docker and exposing little services through a private VPN truly changed my life for the better. But I recognize that a lot of people just wouldn't.
I have this feeling that, at the end of the day, it is the way, despite the difficulties. I don't think we've actually taken the time to make self-hosting as simple and standardized as installing an application like any other. It would be a lot of work to make that a uniform and reliable experience to be sure
I am glad that it is working for you. That is genuinely great :)
But yes, it is not for everyone, nor, frankly, should it be!
@neil
i like what apps like #syncthing and #briar are doing, like self-host by running an app, no faff with domain name registration or NAT config.
@neil As professional techie, security bod, and sysadmin of long standing I'm qualified to self-host, and I do for some things, knowing the risks I take. Most people do not have sufficient knowledge to begin making the right decisions.
@neil As a self-hoster myself, this is not for everyone.
The same way that a car lover shouldn't say "fix the car yourself" instead of going to a car service. Yeah, I'm not going to fix it myself, even if I'm capable of.
I love the idea of coops, and groups of people supporting each others.
Does everyone have a friendly nerd? I don't know.
I am also mindful that shared or collaborative hosting - taking responsibility for hosting stuff for other people - is a considerable commitment, and a source of stress.
Plus, the regulatory framework in the UK and EU, and probably elsewhere, is not making it any simpler or easier to host stuff (for those who care about regulations).
@neil there are a few organisations that host foss services openly to everyone and manage to finance it with donations e.g. https://tchncs.de/en/ and https://private.coffee/ with lovely communities!
> tchncs.de does not come with any warranty what-so-ever. You are using it at your own risk.
This doesn't seem ideal for most people?
> If you interact with this service in any way, whether registered as a user or from a remote instance (if the service supports federation), you agree and are bound to these terms written in this document
lol.
It gets worse (in the context in which we are talking here). Should the average user trust a service with this in the terms?:
> Your account might get restricted, blocked, disabled oder entirely terminated based on our sole discretion, without prior notice or any liability to you.
@neil that last bit, regulatory framework, OSA, etc., is a massive block to people with a bit of spare time and spare tech helping out now 😔
@neil in my region we had a few people like that taking on such jobs as side hustles from their day job at British Telecom research centre.
As soon as the layoffs came (and more and more work got bangalored), they pretty much all disappeared, leaving the community groups and folk they had set Linux laptops up for to fend for themselves, and all the community groups ended up on Meta (where they remain).
ISTR there used to be folk doing this in Reading too when I lived there, but again they all ran out of time/spoons when their secure day jobs went, and there isn't enough money in small scale hosting to provide a sustainable income (especially with clients who might run out of cash themselves and not being able to pay you)
@neil it’s starting to sound like every friendly nerd needs a friendly attorney and a friendly accountant to join the friendly coop
@neil it’d be neat if there was a network of attorneys and accountants adept at setting up low-footprint coops for small groups like this, and a network of networking nerds and sysadmin nerds for handling the tech needs of the coops, and so on throughout the various roles that most organizations end up needing representation from in the modern age.
What would be rather nice is a group of gig workers to assemble bespoke servers/set up software/networking and ship to you/cohosting, and hirable on-demand support.
The idea is, many of just want the sovereignty. We do not really want the hardware/software hobby.
We do not trust anyone. With reasons.
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@neil I self host my physical mail address, paper files and various physical things quite happily. The tech to do so is now centuries old and well understood, ie: a letter box, a filing cabinet, shelves and cupboards. It’s an indication of the appaling state of software that being able to self host a range of services takes deep technical skills and is also profoundly tedious. Perhaps someday you’ll be able to buy an appliance that just works. But I have doubts.