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> you complain about 48 eur and not having a free tier, but you also mention you want stuff. I don't mind paying. Hardware has to be manufactured, infrastructu

> you complain about 48 eur and not having a free tier, but you also mention you want stuff. I don't mind paying. Hardware has to be manufactured, infrastructure has to be kept up. I paid for my phone and my computer, I keep paying the electricity and Internet bills. Heck, imagine this: I also buy software. (€48/y for domain renewal is still robbery by the way.) My problem is: I already paid for all these different services, still have to do all of the integration work by myself, and then when the need arises, I have to start paying for yet-another thing (e.g. a VPS) that in addition to integration now also requires maintenance effort on my part. And then, when I need to change providers, I have to redo a considerable chunk of that work, by myself. > [...] demand stuff without wanting to learn and understand the details. This is a lose-lose arrangement. High bar to adoption means fewer users. Lost users will never contribute any value back. (How to get existing users to contribute is an entirely separate issue.) My complaint also has almost nothing to do with free software. What I want is easy and painless setup, integration, and (when things don't work out) migration. When you signed up with your ISP, they came to your house, maybe ran some cables, plugged a router into the wall - and you can now enjoy WiFi on every device you own, and "it" doesn't care if the traffic is DNS, HTTP, IMAP+SMTP, or Quake. Yet if you want your own DNS, HTTP, IMAP+SMTP, and Quake, each of these is its own little nightmare. If you want to change the ISP for any reason, the process is more or less the same - the worst "technical" part is you will have to type a new WiFi password on every device. Most people can't explain the difference between "the WiFi" and "the Internet", and even those who do will look funny at you when you bring up FTTH vs FTTP. Because all of it just works, and makes people's lives better by being so. Do you see the asymmetries? Can you imagine a world where owning your digital presence was just as painless?

1dom 2y ago
You're comparing something generic, like an internet connection, to a personal website. They're not really similar. It sounds like you want to be able to express yourself personally, but you don't want to be personally responsible for what you use to express yourself. Have you considered social networks? E.g. twitter and facebook: they're pretty painless to setup, integration isn't easy but is well documented. Migration isn't nailed yet, but mastodon and bluesky have approaches to that covered, so how about them?

1dom 2y ago

You're comparing something generic, like an internet connection, to a personal website. They're not really similar. It sounds like you want to be able to express yourself personally, but you don't want to be personally responsible for what you use to express yourself. Have you considered social networks? E.g. twitter and facebook: they're pretty painless to setup, integration isn't easy but is well documented. Migration isn't nailed yet, but mastodon and bluesky have approaches to that covered, so how about them?