[apitman]

There are other issues with the terminology as well. The self hosting community (centered at /r/selfhosted) has a very technical vibe. These people enjoy tinkering with computers. They're like kit car builders.

But there's a whole market of people who could benefit from self hosting, but shouldn't be required to understand all the details.

For example, you can get many of these benefits by using a managed service with your own domain. Things like data ownership, open source software, provider competition, etc.

I think we need a broader term. I've been using "indie hosting" lately.

[simcop2387]

This is the kind of thing I've been watching unfold with some home "NAS" boxes over the past couple of years. It started much earlier but it's started to become more of a differentiating factor in some of the lines lately because the NAS side of things is basically entirely a solved problem for 99% of people, so the manufacturers (Synology, QNAP, Terramaster, U-Green, etc.) have been adding support for doing what looks a lot like turn-key installation of things like NextCloud, Plex, and a bunch of other services that the self-hosting community has been talking about for years.

I think one of the big drivers of it has been the serious increase in performance and capability of the low power embedded processors from Intel and AMD (and in the last year or so some ARM based ones), like supporting more than 2GB of ram and having multiple cores that can meaningfully do work even with a 15W TDP.

[Dalewyn]

I am of the impression that Synology is pivoting away.

>Starting from this version, the processing of media files using HEVC (H.265), AVC (H.264), and VC-1 codecs will be transitioned from the server to end devices to reduce unnecessary resource usage on the system and enhance system efficiency.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/releaseNote/DSM

They say it's to "reduce unnecessary resource usage" and "enhance efficiency", I say it's the start of a race to the bottom of the barrel now that the market is saturated and BOMs start weighing heavier.

[apitman]

If my device supports the native format of the content, I definitely want it decoded there rather than transcoding on the server. Assuming said format isn't significantly more power hungry than the transcoded codec.

[Arn_Thor]

Sure. But they’re not giving the user a choice in the matter. Also, it’s transcoded on the device as it’s backing up, which is the last thing I want to spend battery power on. My NAS is on and plugged into the wall 24/7 for a reason

[nielsole]

"digital souvereignity" maybe?

[apitman]

A term I like, but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue or fingers.

[fractalnetworks]

We call it home-running. My company Fractal Networks is starting with "self-hosted" game servers (on Windows) to get the ball rolling. Check us out https://fractalhome.run.

[apitman]

I like that. Home hosting is a term I've seen and really like, but I think it's too restrictive. There may be far more people who want to keep things in the cloud than who want to run in their house.

[immibis]

I call it self-hosting when it's on your server, and hosting at home, if we want to be specific that the server is at home.

[apitman]

What would you call it if it's hosted on someone else's server, but using open source software under your domain, and you have a complete backup of all the data so you could move it home or to another provider whenever you want?

[transpute]

For the last 30 years, that's been called "web hosting" [1]:

  Shared custody
  No confidentiality
  Portable domain identity

[1] https://www.webhostingtalk.com

[apitman]

If someone thinks to themselves: "I really don't like the ways twitter is changing. I'm leaving, but is there anything I can do to avoid the same thing happening with some other app/company?"

If they search around for an answer to that question, pretty soon someone is going to tell them to "self-host a Mastodon instance" or in the near future "self-host an ATProto instance".

My point is that the term "self-hosting" is unlikely to get them what they want, unless they happen to be interested in learning about DNS, IP addresses, ports, port forwarding, routers, firewalls, NAT, CGNAT, TLS, TCP, HTTP, web servers, Linux, updates, backups, etc, etc.

I don't think "web hosting" is going to help them much either.

What most people want is something like a Mastodon instance from masto.host[0] that integrates with a service like TakingNames[1] (which I own) to delegate DNS with OAuth2. I think we need a new term for this sort of setup. I think the term should also include self-hosting solutions, as long as those solutions focus on the outcomes (having a car to drive), not the implementation (building a kit car).

[0]: https://masto.host/

[1]: https://takingnames.io/blog/introducing-takingnames-io

[johnklos]

I see both sides. While "self hosting" has always meant hosting yourself, and hosting on other people's systems isn't hosting something yourself, I can see how people can get confused and can call running their self-configured software on a rented VM "self hosting".

It's not as unambiguously incorrect as other silly things people say and do that are technically incorrect, but it is annoying when people don't provide enough context where it matters.

Honestly, the distinction only really matters when discussing privacy. Hosting your own stuff in a rented VM is still self hosting, but if you're talking about how you self host because you care about the security of your data, you're now definitely not talking about rented VMs.

Generally, I think we need to get used to the idea that "self hosting" now also refers to hosting software you configure on rented systems / VMs.

[transpute]

> don't like the ways twitter is changing. I'm leaving

Has there been work to quantify relative network effects in Twitter vs Mastodon, either generally or in specific communities? e.g. if person A was following N people on Twitter (e.g. in a list), what subset or superset of N could be followed on Mastdon?

If a user requested all their data from Twitter, including people being followed, is there tooling to map user identity/handles from Twitter to member names on decentralized alternatives?

> someone is going to tell them to "self-host a Mastodon instance.. from masto.host

Wouldn't that be masto-hosted rather than self-hosted?

In that scenario, Masto.host would be a trusted custodian of a social media identity, somewhat like a bank.