this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2025
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Selfhosted

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how do you explain selfhosting to the non-techies in your life? (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 days ago by thelocalhostinger@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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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!

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[–] cRazi_man@europe.pub 29 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (5 children)

Normies don't get it. Privacy means nothing to most normies. I tell them about things they would understand an appreciate:

I don't need to pay for the following anymore because I have my personal version of Netflix, Spotify, Dropbox, Google photos, etc.

I can tell them about a home server also saving me from Onenote, Google Calendar, etc as well; but they tend not to understand this and say "but that's free anyway". In which case it becomes a more prolonged conversation of trying to explain why privacy and data ownership are important.

There's also the hobby/interest/learning aspect of this. But even my wife sees what I do and says she doesn't understand how I can stand troubleshooting server problems; because she gets hugely triggered if tech doesn't immediately work as intended. Tinkering and troubleshooting tech is most people's idea of hell (the equivalent of saying it is fun to have to unclog a public toilet).

Also I can get services not possible otherwise, like Nintendo Switch save game sync across devices (emulation on a number of devices and Syncthing with save data folders).

[–] Nomad 2 points 2 days ago

I have long suspected that its a techies responsibility to take care of their immediate friends and family in regards to self hosting. SoiI usually offer that service for free to my extended family. I usually tell them they have to rely/trust someone, might as well be me and if it weren't them I would charge customers X money for that service monthly. So it becomes a gift and something personal and they feel taken care of and when the dreaded "help me with my email" call comes you just pop open their account without trying all the password on that crusty sticky note and look into it. I especially love those "they claim they didn't get that email" calls. Pop open the log and send the excerpt of their server accepting the email to the claimant and boom number one of all the standard excuses is done for. I once saved my mums job that way.

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