[seagreen]

This is a great comment, because it leads in right to the heart of the problem. Why is running a server so hard? This is actually really weird -- the cloud should mean that you can set up a server with a single click.

Of course, a Linux VPS needs a fair amount of love (fiddling with settings, updating, and so on). But there are other ways: https://sandstorm.io/

[prostoalex]

The heart of the problem is not publishing, it's discovery and curation. Grandma is not going to visit 20 dedicated servers for her grandkids picture fix, she needs it accessible in one place. But then how do you safeguard that place from the likes of games notifications and various spammy/fraudulent apps taking over?

[seagreen]

> Grandma is not going to visit 20 dedicated servers for her grandkids picture fix, she needs it accessible in one place.

This is certainly a problem. If only there was some kind of . . . mechanism . . . by which her computer could collect photos off her friends servers and display them locally? Sounds almost impossible!

(Sorry for giving you a hard time:-) I appreciate your comment, but think that's a very solvable problem in practice.)

[seagreen]

Since I can't edit anymore:

Your comment actually deserves a better response than I gave it. Spam is the open protocol killer. It's a totally serious issue. If our goal was to replicate HN or Reddit via only personal servers, I would be pretty dang paranoid about getting our anti-spam solution perfect:/

Happy in the case of Facebook-on-personal-servers, we have all the advantages and the spammers have all the disadvantages. Social network's main purpose is communication between people who know each other. Ignoring the Pages part of FB (which is really more Reddit-like than it is essential to a social network) communication happens between friends, or friends of friends commenting on photos or whatever. Spammy friend requests will be a problem, but that's not too big of a deal.

And then, once that's done . . . ahhhh. Your own filtering software, blocking game notifications to your heart's content (since it's your own server you can install whatever filter you want, though of course there will be good defaults). Guess where most of the unwanted posts on Twitter or Snapchat come from for me . . . Twitter and Snapchat. No more!

[pjc50]

Sandstorm is interesting, but fundamentally the dichotomy is "leave the running to someone else" vs. "spend significant time and effort acquiring the skills to make your own administrative decisions".

If you're running on someone else's platform and automatically accepting updates, are you really "administering" it yourself?

[seagreen]

Nope! But that's OK:)

A majority of people will never develop any real skill level at administering servers. We still need them to be able to use reasonably humane software though, because the consumer software industry revolves around them. If they continue to be easy pickings for predatory software (lock-in, etc.) the incentive for industry will be to continue improving at making predatory software . . . not ideal.

So empowering normal users (even partially, Sandstorm certainly doesn't give as much freedom as becoming a unix guru or whatever) is good for expert users too.

[plusquamperfekt]

Interesting perspective! It's true that it should be very easy and cheap - something like setting up an E-mail account or installing an app.

[seagreen]

Thanks:) I really feel like this is the core issue here. People complain a lot about Facebook, but what would happen if by some heroic, Odyssey-worthy effort they actually get people to switch to some other social network?

. . .

The exact same thing. The exact same thing would happen, because the new social network would have _exactly the same incentives_ as facebook.

I have some more thoughts on this here: http://housejeffries.com/page/3 Not sure how clear my writing is, but the "Inspiration" section at the end has some links to great projects trying to fix this problem.