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Mandating interoperability, with ActivityPub and similar protocols, would help. In the long term I'd like to see a future where it's a normal thing for people

Mandating interoperability, with ActivityPub and similar protocols, would help. In the long term I'd like to see a future where it's a normal thing for people to roll their own social media platforms, by putting a Raspberry Pi on their local network, downloading and configuring some open-source software, and the local nodes all talk to each other and doing so gives someone the same level of functionality that they today have with a Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/Tiktok/etc account.

ashtonkem 5y ago
That’ll never happen for the same reason why basically nobody runs their own online services today. Most people strongly favor the convenience of existing SaaS services, which is why dropbox beats out all the self hosted alternatives by orders of magnitude.
- roody15 5y ago
  meh … dropbox really?
  - dvdkon 5y ago
    Yeah, file storage/syncing is probably the best example of successful self-hosting for moderately "techy" people, with commercial NASes usually offering much better and cheaper services than cloud storage for home/office usage.
- PontifexMinimus 5y ago
  > Most people strongly favor the convenience of existing SaaS services If it was more convenient to roll your own, then I contend that many people would, and many more would have accounts on friends' servers. The difficulty shouldn't be any higher than the cost of a Pi server and spending an hour setting it up -- all of which is perfectly possible to achieve technocally.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    I believe that you are completely misguided on why people choose to not self host. I don’t think it’s about convenience, they just don’t care about the same things you care about. There is a ton of easy to use self hosted software out there, some of which I run. Compared to their SaaS alternatives though they are extremely unpopular. For a lot of people “buy a raspberry pi” will always be too complex, too expensive (you’re competing against free), and too much long term hassle. Much easier to use the free service that everyone else uses which will be continuously updated with new features automatically.
    - PontifexMinimus 5y ago
      > I don’t think it’s about convenience, they just don’t care about the same things you care about. Some people do. The c. 1 million people who use mastodon or other fediverse services care. > For a lot of people “buy a raspberry pi” will always be too complex, too expensive (you’re competing against free), and too much long term hassle. This is true; it is also irrelevant. I'm immagining a world where maybe 1 internet user in 100 will have a Pi on their home internet connection, and maybe half the people on the internet will have accounts on other people's Pi servers.
pfraze 5y ago
I’ve been writing a bit about that idea https://paulfrazee.medium.com/productizing-p2p-bff5aed95f6a https://paulfrazee.medium.com/productizing-p2p-bff5aed95f6a

ashtonkem 5y ago

That’ll never happen for the same reason why basically nobody runs their own online services today. Most people strongly favor the convenience of existing SaaS services, which is why dropbox beats out all the self hosted alternatives by orders of magnitude.

roody15 5y ago
meh … dropbox really?
- dvdkon 5y ago
  Yeah, file storage/syncing is probably the best example of successful self-hosting for moderately "techy" people, with commercial NASes usually offering much better and cheaper services than cloud storage for home/office usage.
PontifexMinimus 5y ago
> Most people strongly favor the convenience of existing SaaS services If it was more convenient to roll your own, then I contend that many people would, and many more would have accounts on friends' servers. The difficulty shouldn't be any higher than the cost of a Pi server and spending an hour setting it up -- all of which is perfectly possible to achieve technocally.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  I believe that you are completely misguided on why people choose to not self host. I don’t think it’s about convenience, they just don’t care about the same things you care about. There is a ton of easy to use self hosted software out there, some of which I run. Compared to their SaaS alternatives though they are extremely unpopular. For a lot of people “buy a raspberry pi” will always be too complex, too expensive (you’re competing against free), and too much long term hassle. Much easier to use the free service that everyone else uses which will be continuously updated with new features automatically.
  - PontifexMinimus 5y ago
    > I don’t think it’s about convenience, they just don’t care about the same things you care about. Some people do. The c. 1 million people who use mastodon or other fediverse services care. > For a lot of people “buy a raspberry pi” will always be too complex, too expensive (you’re competing against free), and too much long term hassle. This is true; it is also irrelevant. I'm immagining a world where maybe 1 internet user in 100 will have a Pi on their home internet connection, and maybe half the people on the internet will have accounts on other people's Pi servers.

pfraze 5y ago

I’ve been writing a bit about that idea https://paulfrazee.medium.com/productizing-p2p-bff5aed95f6a https://paulfrazee.medium.com/productizing-p2p-bff5aed95f6a