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>I get that FB is convenient >We surely don’t need a multi-billion company to host events and groups for us This is the crazy part about most "cloud" and "soc

>I get that FB is convenient >We surely don’t need a multi-billion company to host events and groups for us This is the crazy part about most "cloud" and "social" things today. Instead of spending money on making core technologies easy to use and accessible to all people we (collectively) fund middlemen who provide usability as a centralized, temporary service. This is exactly like TurboTax, except it's happening with all kinds of IT products and almost nobody cares. For example, there is no fundamental reason why creating your own forum should be significantly more complicated than creating a Facebook account and installing their app on your phone. The only essential pieces of information you need for a forum are universal name/id of some sort (e.g. a domain name), administrative login and administrative password. Maybe not even that. Really, you don't even need login/password if you're okay with using email for authentication. Everything else is made-up bullshit that IT industry refuses to optimize (and, in fact, makes more complicated as years go by). This isn't just about being annoyed by Facebook's bloated UI and glitches. We live in an increasingly information-driven society, so the ability of normal people to own and control their online information is increasingly important.

jolmg 7y ago
> Everything else is made-up bullshit that IT industry refuses to optimize (and, in fact, makes more complicated as the years go by). What are these things? I've never used a phpbb host before.
- gambler 7y ago
  Why don't you try to make one? No, I'm not being sarcastic. The reasons you don't want to try are most likely the same reasons why some non-techie people will not be able to. It's not just about phpbb. My guess is the biggest stumbling block for most people would be domain management. It's hard to say for sure after being immersed in IT for so long. Also, the wast majority of non-tech people I know have no idea what PHPbb even is. So they would have to learn about its existence first. Mind you, I'm talking about a forum you would own, so services like Proboards or Craigslist are out of scope of the discussion.
  - jolmg 7y ago
    > Why don't you try to make one? No, I'm not being sarcastic. The reasons you don't want to try are most likely the same reasons why some non-techie people will not be able to. Money, yeah. Well, there's no getting around that. Someone has to pay for that server. I don't see how the industry can optimize away the need to pay a fee for the hosting without becoming something like Facebook. > My guess is the biggest stumbling block for most people would be domain management. Well, yeah, but you've already mentioned that: > The only essential pieces of information you need for a forum are universal name/id of some sort (e.g. a domain name), I was wondering about the "everything else", what the made-up bullshit that the industry refuses to optimize was. I think web hosts that specialize in forum servers already integrate obtaining a domain from their own platform and even using a subdomain from one of their own, so I don't see what else they could do. > Also, the wast majority of non-tech people I know have no idea what PHPbb even is. So they would have to learn about its existence first. Me neither. I just saw it mentioned when I googled "forum hosting" and it seemed like the most popular forum software out there.
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      > Someone has to pay for that server. True, but hosting is super cheap. Unless your forum is wildly popular, you can get a full, reliable host for about $5/mo. If it becomes wildly popular (but not Facebook-level popular), this would rise -- but you're not likely to need to pay more than $20/mo.
      - jolmg 7y ago
        You don't need to convince me, but when people in general have 2 alternatives and one is free while the other requires a recurring fee of $5 per month, that's a big difference. How would you even explain to laymen the benefits of choosing the one that's not free when it's not even more convenient? To most people, it's paying money to complicate their lives and that doesn't make sense. Also, $5 being super-cheap is relative. If I was really strapped for cash, $5 would pay for nearly a week's worth of food. Some people can't spare that.
chillacy 7y ago
Most readers on HN are fully capable of doing that or have done that before. Running a small to medium site isn’t too hard. Acquiring users, finding volunteers for content moderation.. that’s the hard part.
- gambler 7y ago
  >Running a small to medium site isn’t too hard. It's hard enough that most people don't do it and a lot of them can't do it without expending unreasonable amount of time on learning how to jump through hoops. If you don't see that, you live in a bubble.
  - chillacy 7y ago
    Maybe I should have been more clear, that follows: > Most readers on HN So should be read as "Running a small to medium site isn't too hard for most readers on HN". If it wasn't then that was a failure on my part to communicate effectively.

jolmg 7y ago

> Everything else is made-up bullshit that IT industry refuses to optimize (and, in fact, makes more complicated as the years go by). What are these things? I've never used a phpbb host before.

gambler 7y ago
Why don't you try to make one? No, I'm not being sarcastic. The reasons you don't want to try are most likely the same reasons why some non-techie people will not be able to. It's not just about phpbb. My guess is the biggest stumbling block for most people would be domain management. It's hard to say for sure after being immersed in IT for so long. Also, the wast majority of non-tech people I know have no idea what PHPbb even is. So they would have to learn about its existence first. Mind you, I'm talking about a forum you would own, so services like Proboards or Craigslist are out of scope of the discussion.
- jolmg 7y ago
  > Why don't you try to make one? No, I'm not being sarcastic. The reasons you don't want to try are most likely the same reasons why some non-techie people will not be able to. Money, yeah. Well, there's no getting around that. Someone has to pay for that server. I don't see how the industry can optimize away the need to pay a fee for the hosting without becoming something like Facebook. > My guess is the biggest stumbling block for most people would be domain management. Well, yeah, but you've already mentioned that: > The only essential pieces of information you need for a forum are universal name/id of some sort (e.g. a domain name), I was wondering about the "everything else", what the made-up bullshit that the industry refuses to optimize was. I think web hosts that specialize in forum servers already integrate obtaining a domain from their own platform and even using a subdomain from one of their own, so I don't see what else they could do. > Also, the wast majority of non-tech people I know have no idea what PHPbb even is. So they would have to learn about its existence first. Me neither. I just saw it mentioned when I googled "forum hosting" and it seemed like the most popular forum software out there.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > Someone has to pay for that server. True, but hosting is super cheap. Unless your forum is wildly popular, you can get a full, reliable host for about $5/mo. If it becomes wildly popular (but not Facebook-level popular), this would rise -- but you're not likely to need to pay more than $20/mo.
    - jolmg 7y ago
      You don't need to convince me, but when people in general have 2 alternatives and one is free while the other requires a recurring fee of $5 per month, that's a big difference. How would you even explain to laymen the benefits of choosing the one that's not free when it's not even more convenient? To most people, it's paying money to complicate their lives and that doesn't make sense. Also, $5 being super-cheap is relative. If I was really strapped for cash, $5 would pay for nearly a week's worth of food. Some people can't spare that.

chillacy 7y ago

Most readers on HN are fully capable of doing that or have done that before. Running a small to medium site isn’t too hard. Acquiring users, finding volunteers for content moderation.. that’s the hard part.

gambler 7y ago
>Running a small to medium site isn’t too hard. It's hard enough that most people don't do it and a lot of them can't do it without expending unreasonable amount of time on learning how to jump through hoops. If you don't see that, you live in a bubble.
- chillacy 7y ago
  Maybe I should have been more clear, that follows: > Most readers on HN So should be read as "Running a small to medium site isn't too hard for most readers on HN". If it wasn't then that was a failure on my part to communicate effectively.