[shriphani]

People routinely run their own servers. A great example is bittorrent where the incentive design forces people to run actual file servers on their computer.

People will run servers on their computer if it is (i) motivated the right way, (ii) as frictionless as possible.

For the types of applications that web2 is great at (content creation / consumption), it makes no sense to run a server of course but computing is a lot bigger than that.

[manachar]

"Routinely run their own servers"

That's doing a lot of work.

Sure, it happens, but that vast majority of humans (including programmers) will not be in that category.

[ShamelessC]

There are more common/accessible setups than just BitTorrent. Remote desktop software, media sharing e.g. Plex media center, doorbell cameras (and many other smart home IoT devices), PS/Xbox remote play, etc.

[dochtman]

I’d argue all of those setups combined would amount to less than 1% of internet users, so I’d hardly call them mainstream.

[ShamelessC]

Mainstream != routinely, and yes, I agree.

[kybernetikos]

Most printers and routers are running webservers. Some camera sd cards run servers. My ereader runs a webserver, it works well.

[quickthrower2]

Most bittorrenters leech.