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I’ve self hosted long before the privacy/subscription nightmare of modern cloud/SaaS platforms was a thing. I do it because I enjoy it (and at the time I got started, I had crap internet so having good local services like offline Wikipedia was important).
Not everyone has to self-host. I run lots of services, mostly for myself, but friends and family who don’t know a kernel driver from a school bus driver also use them. So the expectation that everyone self host is and always has been “pie in the sky”. And that’s okay.
Privacy regulations are all fine and dandy, but even with the strictest ones in place, you still do not own or control your data. You’re still subscribing to services instead of owning software. You can’t extend, modify, or customize hosted software. Self hosting FOSS applications addresses all of those.
So rather than expect everyone to self-host, we should be working towards communities offering services to one another, pooling resources, and letting those interoperate with each other.
To make fun of an old moral panic in the 90s: “It’s 11pm. Do you know where your data is?” Yep, it’s down the street in Matt’s house.
I can and do self host, but I’m not willing to provide these services for free. I don’t want to be responsible for other peoples passwords or family photos.
Thats where good, privacy-respecting services come into play. Instead of hosting for my neighbours, I would recommend mailbox.org, bitwarden, ente or a hosted nextcloud.
Note that you don’t know what the hosters know, store and/or sell about you.
Right. I think the real vision isn’t that every single person self-hosts, but every community has somebody in it who does the self-hosting for the community. Everybody can be independent like villages instead of totally centralized like empires
every community has somebody in it who does the self-hosting for the community
That’s what (e.g.) Google and Facebook do: Host software for the community.
They host software for anyone to use, and capture all the data, usage patterns, etc, for themselves, to use for their benefit, and to use against you.
Hell, Google deleted a company’s entire dataset recently. Everything. They gave the police location data on an area and a random person, for no reason other than happening to be in the area, was arrested for murder. Nevermind that they biked through that area every day. Remember Facebook tracking pixels? Cambridge Analytica (which is currently in court)? I mean I can go on and on about how FAANG is abusive and dishonest.
And you want to sit here and tell me they’re the answer?
Are you just an apologist for FAANG, etc? Because you’re really sounding like one at this point.
Who’s paying you to post this disinformation?
They host software for anyone to use, and capture all the data, usage patterns, etc, for themselves, to use for their benefit, and to use against you.
So I guess that we can agree that data stored on other people’s computers will not be safe. I honestly wonder why you think other people’s computers are safer if you know their names.
And you want to sit here and tell me they’re the answer?
I would be very grateful if you would only judge what I have written and not what you think I might have meant.
Are you just an apologist for FAANG, etc?
There is no reason to attack me personally, my friend.
Who’s paying you to post this disinformation?
Just in case I’m fundamentally misunderstanding your personal attack so I don’t report it to the moderators without cause: What is ‘disinformation’ about my pointing out that Google and Facebook host software for other people (even if they have their own motives)?
That’s like saying a farmer will put cheese on a piece of cardboard for the mice to eat.
They might eat it yes, but that wasnt the reason for the whole interaction to start. The glue around the cheese was.
I’m glad that you see my point that “other people hosting your data” is not really a good idea.
You can’t extend, modify, or customize hosted software. Self hosting FOSS applications addresses all of those.
But:
rather than expect everyone to self-host, we should be working towards communities offering services to one another
How exactly are “communities offering services” a different thing than “hosted software”?
Nah, self-hosting is still a solution. And when I self-host, I don’t even need an internet connection to access my files, movies, photos, security cameras, etc.
Yes, we can fix privacy laws, and put in a lot of faith that they will be followed or that our data won’t be lost/sold. But I think everyone benefits when they are in control of their own data.
What we need are more accessible self-hosting options so that even computer n00bs can set up and cut ties with these mega corps.
I’m confused because the article talks about self hosting on a VPS and how many self hosted services could stand up to legal action?
That sounds like it’s describing running a public service for others. Self-hosting IMO is running something for yourself, it doesn’t even need to be on the public internet 99% of the time.
Running a service for others is just plain old hosting.
