I read this article today and quite liked it

https://www.drewlyton.com/story/the-future-is-not-self-hosted/

An analogy came to mind when reading it: if the cloud is feudalism, self hosted is sustenance farming.

Sustenance farming… Well, it sucks, it’s brutal, it’s awful. No wonder people want centralized infrastructure! Groceries aren’t a concept in sustenance farming, neither is something like “food sensitivities”—you just die or accept the feudalism because you have no other choice.

Some people happen to like sustenance farming and the idea of living fully off the grid! But they’re not normal. That’s fine, but it’s not workable for most people and carries an enormous amount of unstated privilege. For example: the person in the article casually buying a server and dropping a few thousand dollars on it, setting up several complicated systems in it, and “only” spending a few weeks of free time doing so? Privileged. Fun hobby if you like that, though!

The bad part, in my opinion, is that our only choices are currently techno fascism… Or the sustenance farming that killed almost everyone who attempted it. That’s not a great set of choices and it doesn’t have to be like that.

I liked the reference to community clouds in the ending of the article. It reminded me very much of Common Pool Resources that Elinor Ostrom talks about, or the emergent strategy of adrienne marie brown. I need to read more Ursula Franklin, but I suspect her writing is right at home here too.

I’d like to live in a world where communities uplift and support each other and are able to do so. I’m doing my best to help make that a reality, even if I’ve had to spend the last year or two putting my own mask on first :)