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The future is not self-hosted

drewlyton.com

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Re: The future is not self-hosted

#2

Post by jqpabc123 »

What we need now from this vibrant community of smart, dedicated, part-time sys-admins is to think... beyond individualism

What we need first is incentive for smart, dedicated, part-time sys-admins to devote time and effort to community hosting.

Without this, it will work --- in the same way that open source works --- without any guarantees or commitments whatsoever.

In other words, you're on your own for the most part. So it really is just a variation on self hosting. By the way, we've already been there, seen that and done that --- it was called "co-location".

When you need something more with service and reliability, well --- you're right back to paying corporate overlords.

But thanks for the round trip thought experiment.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#3

Post by drew_lytle »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #2

What we need now from this vibrant community of smart, dedicated, part-time sys-admins is to think... beyond individualism What we need first is incentive for smart, dedicated, part-time sys-admins to devote time and effort to community hosting. Without this, it will work --- in the same way that open source works --- without any guarantees or commitments whatsoever. In other words, you're on your own for the most pa…

Totally agree that without economic infrastructure supporting the model, it's completely unsustainable. Good-will is not a business model. Thanks for reading!

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#4

Post by HPsquared »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #2

What we need now from this vibrant community of smart, dedicated, part-time sys-admins is to think... beyond individualism What we need first is incentive for smart, dedicated, part-time sys-admins to devote time and effort to community hosting. Without this, it will work --- in the same way that open source works --- without any guarantees or commitments whatsoever. In other words, you're on your own for the most pa…

It's just like any other expense. You can get lunch delivered, or have a cafeteria onsite.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#5

Post by bix6 »

I don’t think most people realize how much they’ve given up. Unfortunately it’s a fair bit of work to reclaim everything as your story shows.

I switched to my own modem and router recently for privacy from my ISP and it was a fantastic experience / worth it but it cost some money and time which can be hard to find.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#6

Post by jmclnx »

It is nice that he created a cloud environment for a pointy/clicky people :)

But if I where to do such a thing:

1. Cloud only used to send and store locally encrypted compressed backup data

2. Open an ssh port to the public, but deny logins. Only allow logins using ssh keys.

3. Download data from my system using sftp/scp

This protects you from being chased by DRM lawyers because the system is not public. Plus it is very simple to setup.

Setting up a Cloud System like described here is very great for end users, but it could get you into court, or at the very least lots of take-down notices.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#7

Post by EGreg »

This is exactly what I’ve been building for a decade, but it’s not just a “community hosted cloud platform”, it is an entire reimagining of Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Telegram and all the other community platforms, for an open source world.

Here is an overview of how the payments work: https://qbix.com/ecosystem

And here is the software you can try for yourself over a weekend: https://github.com/Qbix

If any of you do, let me know what you think!

I have interviewed a lot of people on my channel, including founders of Freenet and MaidSAFE (now called Autonomi) which do in fact replace “the cloud” already, through entirely peer-to-peer nodes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34179795

If anyone here knows Ted Nelson, please put us in touch! I would love to interview him about his vision for Xanadu

For my part, however, I am embracing a different model, where a “QBOX” black box would be hosted by our franchisees in the cloud, among other places. Placing the protocols inside the EC2 instances makes them untouchable by Amazon. Because AWS, Google et al legally are not allowed to go inside those boxes and mess with the software, or even read the contents of the RAM. And I don’t remember any story of them ever doing it even for the NSA. Do you?

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#9

Post by MoreQARespect »

Self hosting reminds me of the world of smartphones just before the advent of the iPhone.

Using a phone as a mini computer was possible. Downloading and using apps happened. I even used offline maps. It was still the preserve of nerds while regular people "couldn't understand why you'd use a phone to do anything other than text and call".

SUDDENLY once it became seamless and trivial to set everything and it was all brought together on a device that was aesthetically pleasing and ergonomic demand rocketed upwards. It turns out that regular people very much wanted a mini computer in their pocket.

This all took me very much by surprise coz almost everything that was revolutionary about the iPhone... I was already doing all of that while it was announced.

I think self hosting is in a similar spot right now. The apps exist (many are extremely nice!), the software exists, but the seamless, aesthetically pleasing and ergonomic experience does not. It's a pain in the ass to set up self hosting.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#10

Post by mystraline »

That all depends if you're willing to run stuff yourself, or be subservient on the good will of companies not to enshittify (pro-tip, they always will).

I self-host the following:

     Video: Jellyfin
     Audio: Navidrome
     Audiobooks: Audiobookshelf
     Phone image sharing: Immich
     Home automation: Homeassistant
     Office suite: NextCloud
     Monitoring: LibreNMS
     Compute: Proxmox
     AI/LLM local: open-webui
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