i am not looking to manipulate or convince anybody, just something informative in general, like “this is the bigtech world, this is the open source / selfhosted world.” any good knowledge bases, blogs, youtube channels and alike that you would recommend? the less technical, the better. it’s not about “how to install this and that” but rather “what do i need this and that for, what are the advantes and what are the downsides”. also, are there resources like that in your language (if you or your people are not english native speakers)?

also very interested in anything else you have to share regarding your personal selfhosting experience and how it may or may not affect those around you.

i’ll start: in my own experience, there are so many other things going on in people’s life, that i understand are far more important than whether their todo list is stored on their own disk or in some other part of the world. especially in the beginning, going open source / selfhosted does often feel like losing comfort, only to be left with more to take care about in return. so getting started as a non-technical person seems incredibly difficult. another thing that comes to mind is, yes i could do the selfhosting for related people and friends, and yes they would trust me with some of their data – but no i don’t want that. not because i am not willing to help, but i honestly don’t want to have access to their data, it just doesn’t feel correct.

thanks for your inputs and have a nice weekend!

  • Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    This. Why pay £6/m when, with self-hosting a Samba/NFS/NextCloud instance, I pay a fraction of the corporate cost.

    Currently I’m paying ~£15/m as my server now has a GPU for better streaming and local assistant purposes. It uses ~80W. Without the GPU I was paying ~£4.50/m, which gets me:

    • Network-wide traffic protection, ads, spam etc.
    • Hub to remotely control, secure and automate my home
    • Cloud media, frequently synced between devices
    • CCTV
    • Password management
    • Email
    • Notekeeping
    • Instant messaging
    • Streaming for locally stored movies, shows, music, podcasts, books, audio books and YouTube subscriptions
    • Multiplayer Minecraft server
    • Website/blogsite
    • Remote desktop access
    • Group video calling/presentation hosting
    • 54TB shared storage between everything
    • Network-attached storage

    Imagine the cost of outsourcing all these services for unlimited access, unlimited* storage, unlimited e-mailboxes, and complete independence** from outside influence. I know I’d be paying £8/m to Google for their 2TB media storage plan alone.

    *Limited by the drives you can afford
    **Relying only on the developers of the software
    It cost approx. £200 for the base parts, £200 for the GPU and £900 for the hard drives. A valuable investment.

    I’ve worked out that I’ve had the server running for 3 years. If I take into account the money I have saved by not paying Google £8/m, I’ve saved £40/year. If I account for Netflix £25/m, I’ve completely covered the £900 I spent on storage. Disney+ £15/m takes me well over the remaining hardware costs. The media I own is far less than that offered by streamers but it’s everything I can need for the next 20 years+. I’ve counted. Every other service is just a bonus.