[gallerytungsten]

We see these stories over and over.

The lesson is obvious: host your most important content on your own server that you control; and make backups.

Some people will say that self-hosting isn't a practical solution. But when the alternative is the potential for devastating data loss, it seems eminently reasonable.

[rwallace]

More practically, or instead of and will suffice. That is, if you lack the expertise to set up your own server, it's okay to use someone else's provided you also keep local backups of all your work. For most people, keeping local backups is far more practical than running your own server.

[Sylos]

There's one problem with that. If your hosting provider throws you out, you may not lose your work, but your followership will still be dispersed.

[erelde]

Emotionaly I think I'd care more for my creations :/

[adzicg]

since reading the prag prog book a decade ago, I started putting everything I can in version control. saved my ass several times so far. used my own svn server for a while, now using a combination of GitHub and AWS git (I think it's called codesource)

[intrasight]

It has been like 14 years since I've had my own physical server in a data center. I don't think self-hosting is a thing anymore for individuals. Today with my symmetric FIOS I could host at home. But then I risk having Verizon pull the plug on my internet if they disapprove of something I post.

Now if by "self-host" you mean to host with a company that doesn't have AI bots scanning for objectionable content, I guess you could host anywhere EXCEPT the big boys. But consider that Google, etc could be providing the AI bot service to anyone and everyone (I'm sure there's a market), so I'm not sure that any form of self-host can really protect you.

So the answer is a) control your own domain, b) backups

[jamesrcole]

Also, there's a startup opportunity here -- making self-hosting super easy and convenient.

[simplehuman]

I have been test driving cloudron.io for self-hosting. I haven't moved all my stuff there yet but it was very easy and convenient to start out.