I love self-hosting a bunch of apps I use, so I don’t have to rely on anyone but my ISP for my digital life. Jellyfin, Immich, forgejo, memos and more.
But I know this isn’t for everyone. I just recently spent about 3 hours doing routine maintenance and fixing an issue (I caused) and I know not everyone is into doing that kind of thing.
I also wonder what it would take to get more people into this self-hosting thing. I.e., to get them off of subscription streaming services, Google, etc…, so they can own their own data, stop feeding the machine and for the general betterment of humanity. What would the world be like if half of all adults self-hosted their own services? Or even 25%?
So, for discussion, is increasing the number of self hosters a good idea? How can we make help that process along?
Edit: Fixed typos
Education of people is always(?) better, I’d say.
It’s good to exercise the mind, just like exercising the body.
What if 25% of car drivers could handle their own car maintenance? The one downside people will scream at first is that fewer mechanics will be needed.
But that is too short sided.
More home mechanics will need to buy more tools, so that’s more store jobs and more manufacturing jobs and more shipping/trucking jobs.
And more people who understand mechanics mean a better workforce who can invent new/better products or processes. And can do more research into manufacturing science, which would improve society.
This would also lead to safer cars because they are better roadworthy, and car manufacturers would have a harder time using low quality parts.
So all of those changes would apply to technology when more people know how to use technology.
And there simply aren’t enough mechanics now, hasn’t been for at least 40 years that I know of.
That’s because it doesn’t pay shot and destroys your body. Not to mention it gets harder every year.
Well, I’m not sure about this literally about car and figuratively about selfhosted: not all the selfhoster have the skills to selfhost, they just think they have and so for the car. If you screw up a service/the whole server you may lose all your data or be at the mercy of some data kidnapper, if you screw up your car brakes, well…bye bye.
In both cases, we don’t have enough skilled people to have that 25% selfhoster (but not even one tenth) nor 25% car self repair drivers. And this is not as bad as it sounds: we can’t be skilled about everything that we need, it’s just impossible! And that’s why we have society!
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I am not talking about jank yolo prayer work. I’m talking about people learning how to do something properly. Duct tape a car is not the repair I’m talking about.
You are complaining about there not being enough skilled workers today. I’m talking about people learning the skills over time.
Look at how many types of food and products are starting to promote cleaner ingredients and more sustainable materials as people are starting to learn more about their health and the environment. People can learn and thing can get better.