4 ms·

I use Tailscale, NextCloud (files, pics, calendar, contacts), Podverse, Obsidian, Bitwarden (Vaultwarden), Home Assistant, ProtonMail, Signal, Element, …. If my

I use Tailscale, NextCloud (files, pics, calendar, contacts), Podverse, Obsidian, Bitwarden (Vaultwarden), Home Assistant, ProtonMail, Signal, Element, …. If my iPhone (iCloud) goes down it’s just a node in the network with all my data still my own and available.

Rinzler89 3y ago
That's great for you and everyone on HN who's tech savvy, but your average smartphone user has no idea what those even mean let alone how to set them up and use them. Your parent is right and is being needlessly downvoted. My dad is often defeated on how to set up or use basic features of his smartphone, let alone on how to migrate stuff from one ecosystem to another, which let's be real, is purposely designed to be as friction inducing as possible.
phantomathkg 3y ago
It will be great this set up can be commoditised so everyone can buy one for themselves/family.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
  You can add it the bucket of similar crap that nerds make when they don’t think to actually check if they’re building something that solves a problem that people actually want solved. The reality is that if you go to any family BBQ and start going on about the importance of self-hosting, I - someone that’s been working with computers my whole life - am going to roll my eyes and not be all that interested in the conversation, let alone anyone else there (chances are they don’t want to talk about computers at all). The reality is that these open-source / self-hosted solutions are, the vast majority of the time, harder to use and maintain. There are few things that sound less appealing to me than dealing with the realities of helping my family and friends with using any of that stuff. This is all just some nerd’s out of touch pipe dream.
  - pdimitar 3y ago
    > This is all just some nerd’s out of touch pipe dream. Yes, though only because it's a lot of trouble to set up today. If it were completely commoditizated -- imagine one more button when setting up a new phone ("Choose where your data resides: Apple, Google, Facebook, Self hosted") and it was completely transparent then it would be used much more, especially if that's complemented by one of the nerds setting up e.g. a neighborhood sync server and everybody around knowing it and using it. So yes, you are not wrong but the situation can change dramatically if ergonomics are improved. Which sadly most of the nerds never work on.
    - unlikelytomato 3y ago
      I used to think this. The Google, Apple, and Facebook options are the improved ergonomics solution. It just never pans out for these open solutions. I've been waiting decades for it things to get to that level, but it always ends up the same way - fiddling with servers.
      - pdimitar 3y ago
        You are restating that the self-hosted options are not as ergonomic yet which I already acknowledged. As for waiting, yeah, sad story, but most of us don't want to be on the computer for 16-18h a day anymore. I implore any of the more privileged programmers -- people with job security, $200K+ annual salary, a lot of social safety nets -- to open their eyes and stop fucking around with the one millionth LISP interpreter and just start making non-corporate-controlled tech already.
        unlikelytomato 3y ago
        understood. I am only extending that to say that virtually all software is built with the headspace of "some amount of maintenance" is to be expected. To overcome this, it needs to be delegated to someone. That someone will cost money. It's unclear to how this cycle will ever be broken unless the entire solution is somehow also controlled and produced with uniform open source hardware.
hu3 3y ago
We are in a 0.01% bubble. For most people, losing their iCloud or Google accounts would be devastating. I always joke that I'd rather lose all my documents and credit cards than lose my main e-mail account. And only tech savvy folks understand that it is not, in fact, a joke.

Rinzler89 3y ago

That's great for you and everyone on HN who's tech savvy, but your average smartphone user has no idea what those even mean let alone how to set them up and use them. Your parent is right and is being needlessly downvoted. My dad is often defeated on how to set up or use basic features of his smartphone, let alone on how to migrate stuff from one ecosystem to another, which let's be real, is purposely designed to be as friction inducing as possible.

phantomathkg 3y ago

It will be great this set up can be commoditised so everyone can buy one for themselves/family.

cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
You can add it the bucket of similar crap that nerds make when they don’t think to actually check if they’re building something that solves a problem that people actually want solved. The reality is that if you go to any family BBQ and start going on about the importance of self-hosting, I - someone that’s been working with computers my whole life - am going to roll my eyes and not be all that interested in the conversation, let alone anyone else there (chances are they don’t want to talk about computers at all). The reality is that these open-source / self-hosted solutions are, the vast majority of the time, harder to use and maintain. There are few things that sound less appealing to me than dealing with the realities of helping my family and friends with using any of that stuff. This is all just some nerd’s out of touch pipe dream.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  > This is all just some nerd’s out of touch pipe dream. Yes, though only because it's a lot of trouble to set up today. If it were completely commoditizated -- imagine one more button when setting up a new phone ("Choose where your data resides: Apple, Google, Facebook, Self hosted") and it was completely transparent then it would be used much more, especially if that's complemented by one of the nerds setting up e.g. a neighborhood sync server and everybody around knowing it and using it. So yes, you are not wrong but the situation can change dramatically if ergonomics are improved. Which sadly most of the nerds never work on.
  - unlikelytomato 3y ago
    I used to think this. The Google, Apple, and Facebook options are the improved ergonomics solution. It just never pans out for these open solutions. I've been waiting decades for it things to get to that level, but it always ends up the same way - fiddling with servers.
    - pdimitar 3y ago
      You are restating that the self-hosted options are not as ergonomic yet which I already acknowledged. As for waiting, yeah, sad story, but most of us don't want to be on the computer for 16-18h a day anymore. I implore any of the more privileged programmers -- people with job security, $200K+ annual salary, a lot of social safety nets -- to open their eyes and stop fucking around with the one millionth LISP interpreter and just start making non-corporate-controlled tech already.
      - unlikelytomato 3y ago
        understood. I am only extending that to say that virtually all software is built with the headspace of "some amount of maintenance" is to be expected. To overcome this, it needs to be delegated to someone. That someone will cost money. It's unclear to how this cycle will ever be broken unless the entire solution is somehow also controlled and produced with uniform open source hardware.

hu3 3y ago

We are in a 0.01% bubble. For most people, losing their iCloud or Google accounts would be devastating. I always joke that I'd rather lose all my documents and credit cards than lose my main e-mail account. And only tech savvy folks understand that it is not, in fact, a joke.