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The Verge Takes on Self-Hosting for the Masses
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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This is actually true, but it doesn't speak to why self hosting is "impossible" and more to how the lack of education around computers have reached an inflection point.
There's no reason why self hosting should be some bizarre concept; In another reality, we would all have local servers and firewalls that then push our content into the wider internet and perhaps even intranet based notes. Society as a whole would be better if we chose to structure the internet that way instead of handing the keys to the biggest companies on the stock market.
I'll give this podcast a listen to though, as it might be interesting. I think the reality is that some more docker frontends might help casual users jump into the realm of self hosting -- especially be setting up proxy managers and homepage sites (like homarr) that work intuitively that never requires you to enter ports and IPs (though fearing that is also an education problem, not a problem with the concept itself.)
If you want self-hosting for everyone, then I suspect you're gonna have something like a console -- a self-contained box that requires virtually no configuration.
So something like a Synology NAS, I guess.
And even that is not for the masses. It's good, it's for the medium savvy folks, but it will never be for my wife - or for my mother!
I suppose that that's an "appliance-like computer" though I was thinking more of general-purpose hardware that takes software modules.
Like, think of how you install a game on a console. Maybe you set up your account at the beginning and plonk in a wireless password, but beyond that, there's no further essential configuration for the thing to work. Same kind of idea. You get box, do initial minimal setup. After that, you install software modules, and they have no more configuration involved.
If more configuration is required, then it's just not going to be something sufficiently accessible for everyone to use.
That's probably not what the typical user on this community is looking for, but I think that that's probably what would be required if one wants everyone in the public to be able to self-host.
In the late 2000s, Opera had a very interesting product called "Opera Unite". It was essentially a self-hosting platform built into the web browser. You could use it to chat, host a website, share photos, share files (and let other people share files with you), and a few other things. It had a guest book called "the fridge" where people could leave you post it notes.
They'd give you a subdomain which would either connect to it directly (if your network allows UPnP or you forwarded the port), otherwise they'd proxy it via their servers.
Basically, it was a super simple solution to create a decentralized web. The goal was to let everyone own their own data in a way that anyone could understand, without having to know anything about server hosting. Instead of just browsing the web, you could contribute to it at the same time.
It worked surprisingly well, but never caught on with the general public, and they killed it off about three years later.
My isp doesn't allow self hosting (available to WAN). Isn't that a pretty common condition in ToS for most ISPs?
I've never bothered to check, because I self host to serve 1-5 users, and I've never generated enough traffic for any ISP to notice. I would need to pay them more for a static IP address, but we have dynamic DNS services for that. My ISP doesn't put any actual obstacles in place beyond dynamic IP.
Here we have net neutrality so they legally can't restrict what you're doing with your connection, unless it's illegal or if you are doing stupid shit like messing with their infrastructure.
CGNAT is decently common though and that can restrict your self hosting capabilities substantially, but you can work around it if you want.
Have you looked into setting up a reverse proxy? If you haven’t already, check out Traefik or Ngnix.
I have not. I've only just started exploring self hosting and am quite a novice. Thanks for the lead!
Oh you summer child (I upvoted, but won't waste an hour of my life listening to random internet stuff). I don't think it's lack of education, in this world it's very possible to educate yourself, it's a lack of understanding (due to misinformation and corporate sponsored laziness) the implications of that easy click, or of what others can get without your consent. Privacy isn't dead, it's just now mostly for the rich.
Condescension is a terrible way to kindle enthusiasm. C'mon, if you know this shit, extend a hand to those who don't.
Valid, and I do help where I can (check my history if you care). This post just tweaked my twee radar, to which I generally respond, gently, "learn to think for yourself", parental pattern I guess.