I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward.
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A fair number of the open source ones too, but at least money isn't changing hands.
I guess I need to clarify that this model does not solve every ill of the current state of technology in society. It is an exit from reliance on corporate services that don't align with one's principles. What you're willing to pay for that is a decision for each community to make.
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@mttaggart I'm against the idea of hosting some one else's stuff. I'd prefer to just host my own. BUT... Doing that and making it safe, resilient and dummy proof is difficult. Knowing your customer is also impossible because you may uncover someone's illegal hobby now hosted on your tech. I think we are better off making a system that is stupid proof to set up, self patching, and offers the user a way to back up their data.
@T2R That sounds pretty good as well, although I suspect some level of community support makes that a lot smoother.
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@T2R That sounds pretty good as well, although I suspect some level of community support makes that a lot smoother.
@mttaggart right but only as supporters and maintainers. Not hosts. Probably some sort of containerized system. That way it can run on NAS devices or full on servers.
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart I don't know if you've seen this thread but it discusses some of the challenges involved, you might find it helpful.
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@mttaggart I don't know if you've seen this thread but it discusses some of the challenges involved, you might find it helpful.
@ShaulaEvans Yes, it's been shared elsewhere in here! I think it's important to think about the issues of scale and what staying small might change about the calculus—both good and bad.
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I guess I need to clarify that this model does not solve every ill of the current state of technology in society. It is an exit from reliance on corporate services that don't align with one's principles. What you're willing to pay for that is a decision for each community to make.
I guess I should also note I think private VPN is a solution unfit for the problems for which it is mostly used. But I do want people to have options to exit the corporate internet that don't require years of IT experience.
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart I have heard of this model being used in Barcelona. I think that @brunovianna might be able to provide further information.
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@mttaggart @philcowans @vfrmedia it's not scale that we're concerned about. scale is not the blocker we are identifying.
@ireneista @philcowans @vfrmedia I understand. That was more in response to the DEF CON conversation. I think and hope I understand your concerns.
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@ireneista @philcowans @vfrmedia I understand. That was more in response to the DEF CON conversation. I think and hope I understand your concerns.
@mttaggart @philcowans @vfrmedia yeah, we do think you do. sorry if that was intense, the feelings we're having are about us, not you, don't worry.
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@mttaggart @philcowans @vfrmedia yeah, we do think you do. sorry if that was intense, the feelings we're having are about us, not you, don't worry.
@ireneista @philcowans @vfrmedia Not at all. I deeply share your concerns, although I am not living them as y'all are. I wish I had better answers.
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@ireneista @philcowans @vfrmedia Not at all. I deeply share your concerns, although I am not living them as y'all are. I wish I had better answers.
@mttaggart @philcowans @vfrmedia all anyone can do is our best
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@mttaggart I love that. Need to do some more research, but would love to get involved with making a US, or even US regional version of this happen.
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart see @thedarktangent recent post on the difficulties of hosting email and VPN services.
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart yeah i agree with this, my main issue right now is that making software for the average person that happens to be properly decentralized is quite hard
they struggle a lot to understand the separation between the app and the server, or what a server even is, and i feel that if we want to make huge change, we have to educate the people and redo the way people see these kinds of services altogether
(... plus build less technical spaces that offer a better and more interesting service than the corpo alternative)
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@mttaggart see @thedarktangent recent post on the difficulties of hosting email and VPN services.
@deepthoughts10 @thedarktangent It's been shared a few times in here
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@mttaggart see @thedarktangent recent post on the difficulties of hosting email and VPN services.
@deepthoughts10 @mttaggart @thedarktangent Do you have a link to that post?
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@ShaulaEvans Yes, it's been shared elsewhere in here! I think it's important to think about the issues of scale and what staying small might change about the calculus—both good and bad.
@mttaggart I hope you can find a way to do it! I wish you all the best.
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@mttaggart yeah i agree with this, my main issue right now is that making software for the average person that happens to be properly decentralized is quite hard
they struggle a lot to understand the separation between the app and the server, or what a server even is, and i feel that if we want to make huge change, we have to educate the people and redo the way people see these kinds of services altogether
(... plus build less technical spaces that offer a better and more interesting service than the corpo alternative)
@nelson I would venture that "we just have to educate them" is a strategy with a poor track record. And that's coming from an educator.
I suggest that the tools must make those distinctions effortless or unnecessary to the user.
I think @HolosSocial is on the right track.
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@deepthoughts10 @mttaggart @thedarktangent Do you have a link to that post?
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@nelson I would venture that "we just have to educate them" is a strategy with a poor track record. And that's coming from an educator.
I suggest that the tools must make those distinctions effortless or unnecessary to the user.
I think @HolosSocial is on the right track.
@mttaggart @HolosSocial i disagree with making it 100% turbo decentralized and exist kind of like a cloud in the middle of nowhere because that has been tried in stuff like matrix and others and it just has led to a lot of different issues, mostly because of how media proxies work and how it entirely destroys any sense of moderation.
i still think it is a good idea to create something more akin to... towns, that specific people with enough time can dedicate their resources to mantaining, so that other people can join freely and adhere to existing rules, kind of like the fediverse, but removing the "black box" element of "you just join and it just works" even though it's a federated system
i think the way through is not unification, but intentional separation of the presentation and rules and structure of each instance, but total unification of the protocol and basics so that people can choose their own client and technology can be simplified to them
i think that... there's also a nomenclature issue in how we manage this kind of thing, right? where we call it "the fediverse" and "federated" and "decentralized" on "servers" that "speak activitypub" and use the "mastodon api" for the "client", it's just very confusing when you frame it as open source tech specifications when it should be treated instead with analogies and metaphors, which is how the early days of personal widespread computing got their way with letting people understand how the underlying tech works: the wallpaper, the files, the desktop, the recycle bin... all of these are analogs for real life objects
