The layer of the stack matters somewhat. You can make it easy to get John to deploy git to AWS. If it's easy enough, cheap enough, and the software were as nice

The layer of the stack matters somewhat. You can make it easy to get John to deploy git to AWS. If it's easy enough, cheap enough, and the software were as nice as GitHub, that'd be a reasonable counter-force to centralization. The ship has sailed in the example you mention, but for future categories of internet applications, enabling easy self-hosting seems like a solid aspect to a multi-pronged strategy towards preventing centralization of those platforms. (Incidentally, this is what we're doing with hubs.mozilla.com, enabling self hosting as a means of pre-empting the rush towards centralized avatar communication services)