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> If you have a technical user who is perfectly capable of self-hosting, and I would argue even gets joy out of doing so, why would that user let go of that joy
by sircastor 2y ago
> If you have a technical user who is perfectly capable of self-hosting, and I would argue even gets joy out of doing so, why would that user let go of that joy and pay up?
Many years ago, I installed and managed OpenWRT on my routers, and FreeNAS on a home-built NAS. It was fun and interesting for a while, but I grew tired of the maintenance and keeping up. It had moved from hobby and became a job. I was full-time network administrator for my own house.
People are infinitely variable. Some will get a lot of fulfillment out of doing it themselves. Some will not. Some will lose interest in self-hosting, but still want your service. There might even be someone who makes an OSS version of the services that you offer for money (see SorryCypress)
Avoid getting too wrapped up in the psychology of your users.
- rekabis 2y ago> Many years ago, I installed and managed OpenWRT on my routers, […] but I grew tired of the maintenance and keeping up. It had moved from hobby and became a job. I was full-time network administrator for my own house. Wait, what?? I check OpenWRT once every several months for a new release, and if one exists I spend an hour or two updating my gateway and wireless bridges. There is no extensive maintenance needed even when running multiple servers behind it. Honestly, I run two VM platforms, a dozen or so VMs, several workstations and a mess of personal machines and devices, and I think I’ve spent half a day on my network in the last year.
- sircastor 2y agoWell, all I can say is that this was about 15 years ago. Updates to OpenWRT were not fun, and I was never very confident that I had done things correctly. Whether it was my shortcoming in technical knowledge, or poor documentation, it was more than I had patience for.