All this self-host techie discourse sounds, to me, a bit like a self-sufficiency dystopia.
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All this self-host techie discourse sounds, to me, a bit like a self-sufficiency dystopia. If we were discussing how bad public transportation is, and someone replied "just transport yourself", most of us would say "that's not it". But when we discuss wanting to get out of large American tech or of nazi-sympathyzing companies, the solution can't be "just host your services yourself". Having to do everything yourself is not my idea of a functioning society.
@annasdtc rather like "grow your own vegables" or "make your own clothes"
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@annasdtc yeah having to do everything yourself sucks. and that’s coming from someone who picks DIY over other options every time. the thing is, i mostly do that because i like broadening my skillset, because new experiences are fun, all that. the part where i have to (like when the healthcare system sucks and i gotta homebrew HRT) just makes me angry.
but, and you should know this because you’re on the fediverse, it’s not always a black-and-white choice between self-hosting or entrusting tech companies with your data. we can still help each other as a community. things aren’t that dystopian yet, and we should keep working to steer clear of that timeline.
i don’t think incentivizing people to self-host whenever some corp screws up is bad per se, but i think we should go a bit further and also equip those interested with better tools and know-how for doing that in a way that allows them to host for a community without too much risk or effort.
and the sooner we normalize that the better, because sweeping regulations aimed solely at corps have already resulted in collateral damage that makes running such things unfeasible for a lot of people.@mia @annasdtc this is been my primary motivation for providing colo services which very few hosting providers do anymore (because it is easier and more profit-dense to just offer 100% virtualized resources). there is a balance between "i am going to do ALL OF IT myself" and "please hold my hand i'm scared" and most people fall somewhere in the middle and accommodating that is very much aligned with my beliefs.
i do not recommend anyone try to do what i do wholesale as it's the extreme end of things. i literally have a datacenter in my basement and i'm running mini splits out windows. i have datacenter contracts that cost more than your average rent payment. it costs thousands and thousands of dollars to set up all this and a whole lot of headaches to maintain it. colo is great because it's entirely that person's hardware so they get full self hosting cred and i do all the hard and expensive shit on that person's behalf like doing routing on the public internet, inventory management, security, etc. plus i get to teach people how this shit works.
it's about as close to a "co-op" as possible although I have some corporate shenanigans to do later next year to restructure the company a little closer to an actual co-op model (US B corp) -
@mia @annasdtc this is been my primary motivation for providing colo services which very few hosting providers do anymore (because it is easier and more profit-dense to just offer 100% virtualized resources). there is a balance between "i am going to do ALL OF IT myself" and "please hold my hand i'm scared" and most people fall somewhere in the middle and accommodating that is very much aligned with my beliefs.
i do not recommend anyone try to do what i do wholesale as it's the extreme end of things. i literally have a datacenter in my basement and i'm running mini splits out windows. i have datacenter contracts that cost more than your average rent payment. it costs thousands and thousands of dollars to set up all this and a whole lot of headaches to maintain it. colo is great because it's entirely that person's hardware so they get full self hosting cred and i do all the hard and expensive shit on that person's behalf like doing routing on the public internet, inventory management, security, etc. plus i get to teach people how this shit works.
it's about as close to a "co-op" as possible although I have some corporate shenanigans to do later next year to restructure the company a little closer to an actual co-op model (US B corp) -
@theorytoe @mia @annasdtc colocation. you slap a server you own in someone else's rack and they provide power/networking/management/remote hands/etc.
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@theorytoe @mia @annasdtc colocation. you slap a server you own in someone else's rack and they provide power/networking/management/remote hands/etc.
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@theorytoe @mia @annasdtc depends. if you have a bazillion VPSes it starts to make sense to just run your own proxmox node. i also literally give hardware out for free i have a spreadsheet and everything.
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All this self-host techie discourse sounds, to me, a bit like a self-sufficiency dystopia. If we were discussing how bad public transportation is, and someone replied "just transport yourself", most of us would say "that's not it". But when we discuss wanting to get out of large American tech or of nazi-sympathyzing companies, the solution can't be "just host your services yourself". Having to do everything yourself is not my idea of a functioning society.
@annasdtc
To me, this is an interesting question indeed. Some want to make their own bread, and thereby understand how a real baker makes bread. Isn't self-hosting a bit of the same idea? -
@theorytoe @mia @annasdtc depends. if you have a bazillion VPSes it starts to make sense to just run your own proxmox node. i also literally give hardware out for free i have a spreadsheet and everything.
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@theorytoe @mia @annasdtc depends. if you have a bazillion VPSes it starts to make sense to just run your own proxmox node. i also literally give hardware out for free i have a spreadsheet and everything.
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@theorytoe @mia @annasdtc >I really dont run anything at a scale where proxmox is even a consideration
it was nice when this was true for me.
now i have 15 of em. -
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@theorytoe @mia @annasdtc >I really dont run anything at a scale where proxmox is even a consideration
it was nice when this was true for me.
now i have 15 of em. -
@annasdtc
To me, this is an interesting question indeed. Some want to make their own bread, and thereby understand how a real baker makes bread. Isn't self-hosting a bit of the same idea?@wolfgangcramer@fediscience.org @annasdtc@sciences.social And some people should, because they want to and it makes sense to want to, and to learn.
What of it?
Some folks are not going to be up to the task. My wife has a Master's in Library Science, she is an excellent blue ribbon winning baker. She has zero interest in self-hosting a website. She should not be required to. -
@annasdtc For me, the way forward is not for everyone to self-host his email, etc. It's that the provider of these services need to stop being large companies, but instead of cooperatives whose workers or executive groups comes from circles you share values with. Something like e.g having your email hosted by a sysadmin co-op that hosting services only to residents of a city, for exemple, I don't know ... Same applies to open source software: it gets forked all the time, so you keep using the fork maintained by the university/coop/whatever you trust.
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All this self-host techie discourse sounds, to me, a bit like a self-sufficiency dystopia. If we were discussing how bad public transportation is, and someone replied "just transport yourself", most of us would say "that's not it". But when we discuss wanting to get out of large American tech or of nazi-sympathyzing companies, the solution can't be "just host your services yourself". Having to do everything yourself is not my idea of a functioning society.
@annasdtc
Por una parte tiene razón, por otra no la tiene. Todo lo que delegues en otros tiene sus problemas (igual que hacerlo todo uno mismo también los tiene). Delegamos la seguridad en la policía, pero muchas veces o no puede estar, o está con otra agenda. Delegamos la gestión de (todo o parte de) nuestras finanzas (en bancos, depósitos, asesores, etc) y nos exponemos a mala gestión o fraude. Si delegamos el control de nuestros activos digitales, pues estamos a expensas de estas cosas. -
@annasdtc
Por una parte tiene razón, por otra no la tiene. Todo lo que delegues en otros tiene sus problemas (igual que hacerlo todo uno mismo también los tiene). Delegamos la seguridad en la policía, pero muchas veces o no puede estar, o está con otra agenda. Delegamos la gestión de (todo o parte de) nuestras finanzas (en bancos, depósitos, asesores, etc) y nos exponemos a mala gestión o fraude. Si delegamos el control de nuestros activos digitales, pues estamos a expensas de estas cosas.@annasdtc
Y el problema no está tanto en externalizar nuestros datos y exponerlos al abuso por parte de los que deberían guardarlos y protegerlos o de quien nos engaña camuflando el que decidamos dejar que comercien o accedan o infieran datos nuestros que no deberían. El problema es que las leyes que nos protejen de estas cosas son ignoradas y los estados lo permiten, a sabiendas de quienes y para qué los usan. Delegamos nuestras vidas a los estados, la sociedad en la que vivimos nos traiciona. -
@annasdtc
Even when there is plenty of open source software to self-host everything, this is not generally feasible. It requires a lot of configuration and security knowledge to get it safely up and running.
But there are sufficient non big tech, even non-USA, companies to choose from for all basic services.@EregLoch @annasdtc As someone who's appeared on a list of names that made the front of HN, I'm going to add that if you draw enough bad attention - say, by signing a petition - you're going to get your systems attacked and if you're lucky it'll only achieve DoS. I can certainly think of easier and nastier things to do in the case of email if the attacker can cover their tracks enough.
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@annasdtc yeah having to do everything yourself sucks. and that’s coming from someone who picks DIY over other options every time. the thing is, i mostly do that because i like broadening my skillset, because new experiences are fun, all that. the part where i have to (like when the healthcare system sucks and i gotta homebrew HRT) just makes me angry.
but, and you should know this because you’re on the fediverse, it’s not always a black-and-white choice between self-hosting or entrusting tech companies with your data. we can still help each other as a community. things aren’t that dystopian yet, and we should keep working to steer clear of that timeline.
i don’t think incentivizing people to self-host whenever some corp screws up is bad per se, but i think we should go a bit further and also equip those interested with better tools and know-how for doing that in a way that allows them to host for a community without too much risk or effort.
and the sooner we normalize that the better, because sweeping regulations aimed solely at corps have already resulted in collateral damage that makes running such things unfeasible for a lot of people.@mia@movsw.0x0.st @annasdtc@sciences.social
it’s not always a black-and-white choice between self-hosting or entrusting tech companies with your data.
Correct, self-hosting is still infested with server-centrism brainworms.
Message-centric schemas, distributed schemas & p2p schemas (those are very much not mutually exclusive, either) are both a lot more resilient and less hostile to user agency.
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@benjamin @annasdtc @geeeero (I would personally love to do that. But shocker... no one is paying me money to buy the equipment and/or make space for it, up to and including moving from my current house. And also, I'd have to go on a research binge and try/fail many times. Who can blame anyone for not wanting to fund that, really? :D)
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All this self-host techie discourse sounds, to me, a bit like a self-sufficiency dystopia. If we were discussing how bad public transportation is, and someone replied "just transport yourself", most of us would say "that's not it". But when we discuss wanting to get out of large American tech or of nazi-sympathyzing companies, the solution can't be "just host your services yourself". Having to do everything yourself is not my idea of a functioning society.
@annasdtc Personally I feel like it's understandable that a lot of technical people are turning to in-house solutions given the current ecosystem and political climate.
There really is a time and place when it comes to suggesting such a solution to someone. Sometimes it's not appropriate to expect someone to build a particular piece of software.
The ideal solution would be that people begin to collaborate and provide alternate services which abide by good governance.
In the context of Open Source Software those projects usually start as the result of someone getting fed up of an unfulfilled need and then other people joining as the project gains traction. A push for people to work together on building software from the get go would be preferable to waiting for individuals to role their own software.
It feels like the main issue here is that these people are providing a very individualistic solution which assumes everyone has the same capability to build whatever the particular piece of software is.
