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+++
title = "RE: Self-Hosting Isn't a Solution; It's A Patch"
author = ["Michał Sapka"]
date = 2024-11-25T21:14:00+01:00
categories = ["blog"]
draft = false
weight = 2001
image_dir = "blog/images"
image_max_width = 600
Abstract = "A replly"
+++
Recently, an article written by Mathew Duggan titled [Self-Hosting Isn't a Solution; It's A Patch](https://matduggan.com/self-hosting-isnt-a-solution-its-a-patch/) has been shared everywhere.
Frankly, I disagree with it quite deeply.
It's not even about giving terrible examples of Apple and Fastmail as _private_ services (with servers in Australia and US, governments have a open line to get the data. Also, Apple is an ad company now as well), but more on the definition of _decentralization_.
Mathew argues that "Self-hosting platforms are fragile."
Well, this where I can not agree, as this not the type of services I advocate for.
Self-hosting platforms are, for the most part, ultra resilient because they don't rely on any single provider.
My Mastodon instance can be shut down by a lunatic (again), but then I can simply move to any other server.
This it root of _decentralization_ as it's based on _interoperability_.
You can't change Twitter provider, it doesn't work like this.
When Musk gets bored with ruining it, he may very well turn of the lights and all of Twitter will never to be seen again.
Self-hosting is not the goal in itself, as it would make no sense.
You can't self-host for self-hosting sake, as no one will be able to use it.
Only by allowing interoperability, you give it a raison d'etre.
WWW is decentralized, Email is decentralized, IRC is decentralized and so on.
And while I love the idea of self-hosting all of it, unless people who won't, can access it, it makes non sense.
This site could have been hidden behind a firewall, never to be exposed to a random visitor.
But while it is self-hosted in my living room, I allowed it to be accessed from the wild, open net.
It may go down any minute (and it will; I have no UPS), it will not matter in the grand scheme of things and millions of other sites will be there, unmoved by my sheer lack of better things to do.
Imagine world where all of the web relies on a single provider.
It's a VC's wet dream.
We are close to that (please, don't use AWS), but we are not there yet.
The web is decentralized, interoperable and you _may_ self host how much of it as you want.
What's more, Mathew also assumes that it's free labor.
Is it?
Some of if it, yes.
But people (like me) earn a living from developing and maintaining the open-web.
Threads, while still being Meta, is available from the Fediverse.
It's not self-hosted, but your self-hosted instance can be accessed from it.
And Zuck sure earns a lot from it.
In fact, a lot of _centralized_ services stared as _decentralized_.
Remember when Slack was accessible from IRC clients?
When Google Talk was just an XMPP?
It worked much better than it does now.
And this is exactly what I advocate for.
It never was a Utopian idea, it was a reality and a normal thing.
It's the centralization of the web which is the outlier.
Privacy is a side-product of decentralization, of self-hosting.
While it the essential, it's not the whole picture.
GDRP is a bare minimum, it's tax _we_ pay for the web of today.
We should have never needed it.
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