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Always Own Your Platform (2019)

alwaysownyourplatform.com

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Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#41

Post by _carbyau_ »

heywoodlh wrote: post #23

> Distribute [your content] via methods you control. I'm being nitpicky but it feels off to me to call people out on owning their own platform but then use Cloudflare's CDN instead of running their own. And if they did run their own CDN, they would probably have to use AWS or another worldwide cloud provider and not own the hardware. And if I were Richard Stallman I would probably come down on you for using proprieta…

Depends what your platform is but most of the examples given are about content.

So I see it as own your content and don't licence it out or be unprepared to migrate hosting platforms as needed.

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#42

Post by heywoodlh »

neoromantique wrote: post #29
heywoodlh wrote: post #23

> Distribute [your content] via methods you control. I'm being nitpicky but it feels off to me to call people out on owning their own platform but then use Cloudflare's CDN instead of running their own. And if they did run their own CDN, they would probably have to use AWS or another worldwide cloud provider and not own the hardware. And if I were Richard Stallman I would probably come down on you for using proprieta…

Having CF handle your CDN proxying is still much better than just using some all in one platform. At least you own your data and can migrate it if need be.

I absolutely agree -- I was just using that as an example of how subjective "owning your own platform" is.

EDIT: I originally said "owning your own content" but "owning your own platform" is more in line with what I am talking about

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#43

Post by yellowapple »

aqme28 wrote: post #13
azangru wrote: post #9

> Facebook, Google, Twitter, Medium, and YouTube entice us to give them our creative work. It's time to take it back ... Stop giving away your work to people who don't care about it. Host it yourself. So, youtube, right? Where would you host your videos if you had a mind to take them back?

> Google Yeah, stop letting Google dictate your search results! Create your own search engine and own your platform!

Ain't sure if you know this, but in case you don't, Google is a lot more than just a search engine nowadays.

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#44

Post by bragr »

heywoodlh wrote: post #23

> Distribute [your content] via methods you control. I'm being nitpicky but it feels off to me to call people out on owning their own platform but then use Cloudflare's CDN instead of running their own. And if they did run their own CDN, they would probably have to use AWS or another worldwide cloud provider and not own the hardware. And if I were Richard Stallman I would probably come down on you for using proprieta…

Unless you are using Cloudflare's specialized security services, CDN is pretty interchangeable and easy to switch between. You can ever do dynamic DNS things to use multiple CDNs at the same time and shift different traffic segments onto different providers if you are into that sort of things, or tier one CDN behind another to act as a mid tier.

I don't really understand why the decentralized internet folks harp on CDNs because they will be very required if they ever get their way since by definition, if everyone is running small to medium, highly distributed sites, then you aren't likely to have a point of presence near most users and that will be poor user experience.

My guess is that most people have only heard of Akamai or Cloudflare so they automatically associate CDN with huge companies, but the reality is that the CDN space is highly competitive and decentralized. Just off the top of my head there's at least a dozen providers I would consider tier 1, several dozen I would classify as medium sized or targeted at niche audiences, and probably hundreds of small providers, not to mention just about every large telco operates their own CDN now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network#Notab...

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#47

Post by nmilo »

altdataseller wrote: post #5

Sounds cool in theory but almost impossible and impractical. For example, you can have a newsletter but google could decide your domain belongs in Spam forever. There goes that “owned platform”

The bin forever? I don't know anyone who gets their news and blog posts straight from Google search. Google can't stop you from putting up an RSS feed, sharing the link to friends, or posting it to content aggregators like HN or Reddit, which I think are far more important for building a real audience than Google search.

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#48

Post by TranquilMarmot »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #19

What's always blown my mind is the trend for businesses to fail to understand this. Building your entire company around AWS means a future competitor also already has full control of your company and access to your data. And I think the most hilarious example is Microsoft, a trillion-dollar level company which chose to hand over the entirety of the web (by switching to Chromium) and mobile (by abandoning WinMo for An…

The way I see it, Microsoft did that because they didn't view the web or mobile as mission-critical to their success as a business. Obviously they tried to invest in those areas and failed miserably (pre-Chromium Edge was awful, Windows Mobile was doomed to fail against iOS/Android).

Here's an interesting breakdown of their profit:

https://techbehemoths.com/blog/how-microsoft-makes-billions

Azure is a huge cash cow, even in the competitive market (AWS, GCP, IBM, etc. etc.) because nobody wants to handle their own servers now. Many organizations are still a "Microsoft shop" and Microsoft makes loads of money from those contracts, not to mention enormous contracts with the government. It's interesting to see the money they make from gaming so strong; Google tried to get into gaming and keeps failing (see Stadia) and Apple seems to be having mixed results with it. Don't underestimate the strength of the Xbox brand!

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#49

Post by jlfyhilfyu »

bumper_crop wrote: post #31

From 2006 to 2014 I owned my own platform. Several actually. But I turned them down after it became a lot of work to maintain. At the time, it wasn't so obvious the web was dying, but in hindsight I probably helped kill it. In the beginning the web was so new, and growing so fast, with new things, amazing sites, and more people getting online. Like all things in life, competition arises, and better sites started gett…

While the damage is severe, I don't think it's permanent. Mastodon is far from a powerhouse, but is chugging along happily with a slowly growing user base. Matrix arrived just in time to help prevent Slack and Discord from becoming the defacto real-time communication systems for open source projects. Even SA is starting to heal now that it's out from under lowtax and his bullshit.

Re: Always Own Your Platform (2019)

#50

Post by heywoodlh »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #41
heywoodlh wrote: post #23

> Distribute [your content] via methods you control. I'm being nitpicky but it feels off to me to call people out on owning their own platform but then use Cloudflare's CDN instead of running their own. And if they did run their own CDN, they would probably have to use AWS or another worldwide cloud provider and not own the hardware. And if I were Richard Stallman I would probably come down on you for using proprieta…

Depends what your platform is but most of the examples given are about content. So I see it as own your content and don't licence it out or be unprepared to migrate hosting platforms as needed.

Good point about content and licensing. It is discouraging to understand that in most cases when people post content it isn't theirs anymore despite them taking the time to create it.
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