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The future is not self-hosted

drewlyton.com

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Re: The future is not self-hosted

#241

Post by geerlingguy »

wmf wrote: post #206
lloeki wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember there was this short period of time around (lousy approximate timeframe) Snow Leopard where a confluence of features and hardware was suddenly available and which would have made this just within reach of Apple completely changing the game: - There were OOTB features on Mac OS X such as web page building and publishing - There was Mac OS X, but there was also Mac OS X Server, a full-fledged, easy(-ish) to…

Apple explicitly called it the Digital Hub strategy. But they never went all the way.

The ongoing Services revenue was too great.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#242

Post by sashank_1509 »

OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote: post #171
sashank_1509 wrote: post #169

The fundamental problem here is that bad apples don’t respect common sense agreements. If everyone who owned a kindle book, agreed to never share the downloaded version of the book for free on the internet, companies would not have to do this. I don’t see what’s the solution, if buying a kindle ebook is allowing you to share it for free on the internet. In the past people were limited by a physical copy, they could g…

I see this claim often but bypassing DRM is an inevitability to the point where it's commonly done within hours of a new release simply for the fun of doing it. And to quote Gabe Newell (founder and owner of Valve, the company that operates Steam): > "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product…

If you have 2 options, get the product for paying a market price, and get the product for free, I think 90%+ of all humans will get it for free. The only thing stopping them is friction and consequences. I’m not as optimistic as you, that the only reason people pirate is because it’s available in their geography (why not use a VPN and buy it then). Some people will pay for stuff, I never use pirated stuff, but I’m pretty sure that group of humans is a rarity.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#243

Post by nirui »

drew_lytle wrote: post #104
nirui wrote: post #96

> Imagine a world where your library card includes 100GB of encrypted file storage, photo-sharing and document collaboration tools, and media streaming services — all for free. But why should a (public) library be interested in providing such services? For funding? What about costs? On for example censorship/regulations/compliance/maintenance etc? I'm not so sure a publicly funded library would have any interest in d…

Hey! Thanks for the comment! > But why should a (public) library be interested in providing such services? For funding? What about costs? Public institutions like libraries are usually funded through government mandates. We as citizens decided that having free access to books is a good thing and nations, states, and municipalities dedicate tax dollars to fund those programs. So, if we decided providing internet-based…

> Not saying that's likely, but it is possible.

I'm afraid that's not how things work.

For example, it is possible for everyone to self-host their own service, it's true and everyone can do that right now. However, that's not what happened.

In reality, people oped in to use these cloud services, with full understanding of it's downsides, in exchange for convenience and low cost for themselves.

And as I've pointed out in my last comment, the companies has optimized their services so well, it made it very hard for a library, which is a "outsider" in the service field to compete. The library and it's lacking of technical know-hows, political resources etc will eventually doom the service, making it a product people only buy with higher-than-market price as a show off of their goodwell. That's not a sustainable business model or any model, really.

You must know all these things if you want to change the world for the better. Dreaming on vague an idea is easy, making things actually work is hard.

Also, you need to reconsider the meaning of the term "self-hosting", because unlike what people widely believed, "self-hosting" is not equivalent to "setup and running a server by yourself". The definition is much wider.

In fact, if you ever downloaded something from the Internet and storing it on your computer for later use, that's self-hosting, you just not sharing it with remote access. And if you copied what you've downloaded to multiple computers, then you've just created redundant and distributed backups.

But if you taking that into consideration, that downloading is self-hosting, then there's even less reason to use self-hosting service provided by a library, because why should you pay extra for all of that if you have already done it with no added cost? Just for a expensive remote backup maintained by people who has other jobs?

    - "if there was only one library. But, there are tons!" - This is just empty dream. Not many will be welling to do it in reality.
    - "if the services are based on interoperable standards" - Designing protocol is not easy, and by simply defining the protocol you also restricts what the protocol can do. A file sharing protocol? Good luck getting it to also do bookmark or chat. So, empty dream based on empty dreams?
Sigh. Have you noticed this many "IFs" in your idea? "If some public institution is welling to do it", "If the institution can handle all the requirements", "If regular people are welling to pay for it" etc etc. These ifs are much much bigger than what you probably expecting.

I do feel you have a good heart and wanted a good change, but you look inexperienced. I would recommend that you learn the industry or simply work in it for a few years, then maybe you'll come up with something that actually works.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#244

Post by gerdesj »

The title is showing quite a lot of ankle! OP is a proud self hoster.

I run my own email, DNS and the rest. Yes: email. I run several domains including my own company and my own vanity domain and several more for friends. I have been doing it for decades.

Goog, MS and co do follow standards and if you do too, they will be largely merciful if you keep your nose clean. I have even managed to run an email system from my home connection as a test IPv4 and 6. I'm UK based. It does seem that IP denylists do seem to be a bit brutal in the USofA, so that might explain the downer meme on self hosting email.

The future is and always will be self hosted if you give a shit.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#245

Post by Shopper0552 »

willquack wrote: post #100

Am I crazy or did my 2006 iMac come with a home media server for serving movies / tv shows / music photos from your filesystem. I think it even came with a slick looking remote! You could stream content from it over your home network (as long as you were connecting from another Apple device) Is this lost technology or just a figment of my imagination? I've long since switched to linux and run the typical Jellyfin set…

I’ve never had an iMac but my MacBook Pro circa 2009 came with a media remote. There was an infrared receiver on the body of the laptop in the front corner.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#246

Post by MrJohz »

autoexec wrote: post #233
Aurornis wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally prefer owning my content, physical books, and having local copies. But if I’m being honest, I think this claim that if you don’t own the book you don’t have the knowledge and society will turn into digital feudalism is hyperbole. Knowledge is proliferating faster than ever, becoming more accessible than ever, and it’s easier than ever before to get the info that you’re searching for, even in this streami…

> Knowledge is proliferating faster than ever, becoming more accessible than ever, and it’s easier than ever before to get the info that you’re searching for Information is proliferating and is more accessible, but a huge amount of that information is lies and manipulation I'm not sure that really counts as knowledge. > The idea that I’m going to lose knowledge from a book I read 5 years ago if it disappears from my…

> Information is proliferating and is more accessible, but a huge amount of that information is lies and manipulation I'm not sure that really counts as knowledge.

I don't think that's any different to any other period of time when communication was suddenly able to expand. Gutenberg's press didn't come with an automatic lie detector that meant the printed word could only contain true facts and nothing else. Instead, it was mainly used for pamphlets and other campaigning propaganda - some of which surely had some truth to it, but much of which was partially or fully fabricated.

I think you are romanticising the past's approach to the written word here. It has always been possible to completely rewrite history, if you're willing to put the work in, and totalitarian regimes have had no issues in convincing their populations to burn their own books if necessary.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#247

Post by eldaisfish »

MrJohz wrote: post #246
autoexec wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Knowledge is proliferating faster than ever, becoming more accessible than ever, and it’s easier than ever before to get the info that you’re searching for Information is proliferating and is more accessible, but a huge amount of that information is lies and manipulation I'm not sure that really counts as knowledge. > The idea that I’m going to lose knowledge from a book I read 5 years ago if it disappears from my…

> Information is proliferating and is more accessible, but a huge amount of that information is lies and manipulation I'm not sure that really counts as knowledge. I don't think that's any different to any other period of time when communication was suddenly able to expand. Gutenberg's press didn't come with an automatic lie detector that meant the printed word could only contain true facts and nothing else. Instead,…

it has never been easier to poison the well of knowledge at the scale possible today. the internet enabled instantaneous dissemination whatever version of reality tickles your fancy. the effort required is also minimal.

This has never been possible in the past.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#248

Post by bigstrat2003 »

rel_ic wrote: post #194
deathanatos wrote: post #162

The author mostly just hand waves away self-hosting. There's an analogy that compares it to suburbia, but unlike the suburbs where you have to drive 40 minutes to get anywhere interesting, … an Internet hosted service is just as accessible , anywhere. It's a vapid analogy. The only substantive argument I can see is that the technology is immature: > Well...without exposing our services to the public internet and forc…

I totally agree. I see this "people don't want to do hard stuff" argument used all over - completely disregarding tens of thousands of years of people doing hard stuff. It comes off to me as the author not wanting to do the hard stuff of working towards their values. Just kind of defeatist and trying to make a splash but leaning on a pretty weak premise.

> completely disregarding tens of thousands of years of people doing hard stuff

a) Just because humanity as a whole did hard things, doesn't mean that most humans did or were willing to. It's perfectly possible that all the hard things we did were accomplished by a handful of remarkable individuals, doing things that the majority never would have been willing to.

b) just because people in one age have been willing to do things, doesn't mean they are willing to do so in all ages. So it's not like the past necessarily proves anything here.

Re: The future is not self-hosted

#249

Post by bigstrat2003 »

waldopat wrote: post #195
nine_k wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come that a public library , one of the earliest examples of centralized information infrastructure, is not an example of outsourcing and relinquishing control? Instead of your own (small) books collection you get to use some external (huge) book collection. But now you only can borrow a physical book, or some recorded media. You have to return it, and making a copy for personal use only is still a bit problemati…

As a public institution you, the citizen, own it. What you are talking about is hoarding access. You want complete unfettered access to content without barriers and without friction. Typically the only way to do that is via pirating. Let me remind you of the open source credo about free as in freedom not free beer. You are right that there may be exchanges or compromises at play, but it was a bit shocking to me when…

> As a public institution you, the citizen, own it.

Nominally, yes. In terms of that meaning anything, no. The benefit of ownership is not exclusivity, but control. If the library doesn't have a book (or other piece of media, of course), I have no power to influence them to get it despite that theoretical ownership. If the librarian decides a book is offensive and removes it from the collection, I have no power to influence them to keep it. I have to live with someone else's decisions about what the library does and does not contain, just like with a commercial service. So my nominal ownership really means nothing at all.

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