Self-hosting conundrum.
After having taken the time to set up YunoHost, I've saved myself a little money and feel empowered.
However, I now have no direct imperative to financially support some orgs/projects I like and was supporting (GreenNet, Wallabag, etc).
I could self-host and donate, but then it probably ends up costing more if you factor in time and money combined.
I wonder if the purity of self-hosting everything goes a little too far.
I think perhaps my preferred middle ground would be ownership of data, and remunerating orgs I like to administer apps that operate on that data.
@neil I like the idea of co-ops where you have agency as part of the org which manages your data.
Not sure if theres any real good examples of this, where most/many user-owners are somewhat actively involved in the running and/or governance of the service.
#socialcoop has been an interesting project. Lots of engagement/excitement early on. Then 'the crisis', following which there was a massive disengagement & many people left. Nice to see ever more efforts to get people more involved.
@dazinism Yes agreed. I think the pendulum could swing too far back in revolt against big platforms.
Though I do see some sense in the 'no servers no admins' P2P ideal too, from the perspective of agency and anti-authoritarianism.
I suppose if your servers and admins are part of the collective, then their existence is less of an issue.
I guess agency + community should be the goals, and the infrastructure that best enables that more of an implementation detail.
@neil yeah, not hung up on specific architecture or tech stack. Just very open to stuff, as you mention, that increases agency & community **at all layers of the tech stack**
The stack is so complex that theres all kinds of organisations that have to be trusted when we use computers. Fixating on eliminating, or taking personal control of, a layer of the stack reduces the number of parties that need trust. But still so many more
Also there are cases where theres benefits to keeping that layer
@neil @dazinism The pendulum hasn't swung nearly far enough. I'll only be happy when I see Zuckerberg file for bankruptcy.
The fediverse appears to be growing, but it's still not even a flea on the back of Facebook. This is why they havn't bothered to formulate any counter-strategy.