i am not looking to manipulate or convince anybody, just something informative in general, like “this is the bigtech world, this is the open source / selfhosted world.” any good knowledge bases, blogs, youtube channels and alike that you would recommend? the less technical, the better. it’s not about “how to install this and that” but rather “what do i need this and that for, what are the advantes and what are the downsides”. also, are there resources like that in your language (if you or your people are not english native speakers)?
also very interested in anything else you have to share regarding your personal selfhosting experience and how it may or may not affect those around you.
i’ll start: in my own experience, there are so many other things going on in people’s life, that i understand are far more important than whether their todo list is stored on their own disk or in some other part of the world. especially in the beginning, going open source / selfhosted does often feel like losing comfort, only to be left with more to take care about in return. so getting started as a non-technical person seems incredibly difficult. another thing that comes to mind is, yes i could do the selfhosting for related people and friends, and yes they would trust me with some of their data – but no i don’t want that. not because i am not willing to help, but i honestly don’t want to have access to their data, it just doesn’t feel correct.
thanks for your inputs and have a nice weekend!
Normies don’t get it. Privacy means nothing to most normies. I tell them about things they would understand an appreciate:
I don’t need to pay for the following anymore because I have my personal version of Netflix, Spotify, Dropbox, Google photos, etc.
I can tell them about a home server also saving me from Onenote, Google Calendar, etc as well; but they tend not to understand this and say “but that’s free anyway”. In which case it becomes a more prolonged conversation of trying to explain why privacy and data ownership are important.
There’s also the hobby/interest/learning aspect of this. But even my wife sees what I do and says she doesn’t understand how I can stand troubleshooting server problems; because she gets hugely triggered if tech doesn’t immediately work as intended. Tinkering and troubleshooting tech is most people’s idea of hell (the equivalent of saying it is fun to have to unclog a public toilet).
Also I can get services not possible otherwise, like Nintendo Switch save game sync across devices (emulation on a number of devices and Syncthing with save data folders).
Can you elaborate what you mean with Nintendo switch sync? I have switch online so I have the cloud backups between my switch and switch 2, but there are some games like the Pokemon games that don’t support cloud backups
I’ve shoved my Switch to the back of a cupboard somewhere and don’t use that hardware at all. I use Eden emulator to play Switch games on my Steam Deck and my Retroid Pocket 5, and also my PC (if my kids want their save game progress there). Syncthing is set up on my home server and all these devices. The save data gets synced across all devices. I’ve been loving it. I’ve ditched the shitty Nintendo hardware and always refused to pay for Switch online since it didn’t work for a bunch of games anyway. The emulated games get better performance with better screens and controllers on these devices, and all games sync reliably at no extra cost.
I’ve got Switch games on my phone as well (Into the Breach works great with touch controls alone), but I haven’t figured out synchronising save data from here since Android locked down app data folders.
I can give you more details or resources with instructions if you want, but this won’t apply to actual Nintendo hardware and certainly not Switch 2.
That’s alright, thanks
You may find syncthing-fork on fdroid to be useful. The nextcloud app was crippled with sync charges due to the play store but the fdroid variant doesn’t have such restrictions. The same may be true for syncthing-fork
Yeah i think it’s an education thing as well. People tend not to understand how stuff works and if they did they would be much more „paranoid“
Depending on reliability and stability of the local internet and power, you want to have your stuff available. Ranging from documents and photos up to your libary of everything else. Everything has pros and cons and what things you’re fine with.
Most of the time, all news are doing the part of “why it’s bad to rely on big corp”…
Explain why you care about it, usually if the people trust you, they will share your opinion
-
I like to own the stuff I buy.
-
I don’t want to pay a corporation a monthly fee to access my own data.
-
I don’t want a corporation or government to have unlimited access to my stuff.
-
I normally tell it straight from why I got interested on it: “I like my stuff being mine”
I have my own server, at home.
deleted by creator
I don’t have to worry about price increases or media being removed unannounced because a license expired.
I have the physical media here or at my parents place.
I just tell people “It’s free and I don’t get twenty thousand ‘license term updates’ in my email every month”
Long ago I learned to stop convincing people to stop shooting themselves in the foot.
Just link them the story of a Dad getting locked out of his Google account after sending a picture of his child to the Doctor as part of remote care.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/22/google-csam-account-blocked
The point being they can fuck up your life on a whim and don’t care about the harm they will cause because your one out of millions.
You know [Burger chain]? Self hosting is making your own burger. Kinda similar ingredients, kinda looking product overall, it’s still a burger.
But you’re in control.
And the one you make at home is always better anyway. Just requires more labor.
I liken it to hiring a plumber/electrician/carpenter vs figuring it out myself. Instead of using a website on someone else’s computer, I use websites on my own computer.
That is actually an important distinction, with the burger example you only get the “do it myself” part and some people will say “meh I can deal not getting home made burger”.
Hiring an electrician though for example. You let someone in your house. Without self hosting is like having an electrician constantly knowing what you do with the electricity, like he never leaves the house.
How I explain Self-Hosting to the non-techies in my life: “This is me practicing my trade. As a server and systems admin, I need servers and systems under my control that I can experiment with, set up, configure, break, and fix, and self-hosting has a benefit that instead of four computers, two by my wife and two by me, each hosting its own data, I can set up a network storage device where both of us can store our data.” Any more than that, and I probably won’t go into detail, because I don’t ask my accountant friends to go into the weeds about their career and return that favour by not going into the weeds about my own. :)
“I have my own Netflix and Google Drive and Spotify etc etc”
The streaming apps aren’t as convincing to replace unless you’re pirating, I suppose. I don’t want to rip all of my DVDs, and I don’t have that many anyway.
I just tell people to try and find a legal streamable copy of Dogma.
I just tell them I run a private cloud. It’s so much easier because they understand in general “cloud equals internet”
I say, I don’t pay for Netflix, but I’m able to stream whatever I want. I do the same with books. And audiobooks.
You know Google drive? You know how it doesn’t work when the internet is out? You know how we live in rural USA so the internet is out every other day?
Yeah that computer in the corner is my own Google drive that still works when the internet is out.
