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What I Self Host

(fredrikmeyer.net)
116 points FredrikMeyer | 12 comments | 20 Oct 25 16:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.622s | source | bottom
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teddyh ◴[20 Oct 25 16:40 UTC] No.45645903[source]▶
I deplore this weakening and dilution of the term “self-hosting”. In my opinion, if your services had downtime today, you are not “self-hosting”. If you depend on anything which has “cloud” in its name, you are not “self-hosting”. If you cannot reasonably quickly access your hardware physically, like inserting or replacing an add-on card, you are not “self-hosting”.

EDIT: It’s like saying “I don’t take the bus! I ‘self-drive’ my own car! (By which I mean that I employ an agency to provide a driver to drive a car for me, which I rent!)” or “I self-grow and self-harvest all my own food! By which I mean that I pay a farmer to grow food and harvest it for me.”

Words have meaning.

(Further: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21240357>)

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1. CaptainOfCoit ◴[20 Oct 25 16:46 UTC] No.45645989[source]▶
If you haven't picked together the hardware for your home server at home, can you really say that you're self-hosting? Or if you haven't really built the components yourself, are you actually self-hosting? If you cannot reasonably quickly debug your hardware faults physically, you're not "self-hosting".

It seems everyone draws the line of "self-hosting" differently. For some, "self-hosting" could be running Wordpress at DigitalOcean. For others, self-hosting means using your residential internet connection and having the hardware at home. I'm not sure one is more "correct" than the other, just different perspectives.

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2. teddyh ◴[20 Oct 25 16:49 UTC] No.45646052[source]▶
> [Paraphrased] Words mean different things to different people! Anyone can choose any definition they want!

No, words have quite definite meanings. Otherwise, they are not an aid to communication.

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3. latexr ◴[20 Oct 25 16:50 UTC] No.45646086[source]▶
That seems ripe for an alternative version of the popular “loops to goat farming” quote:

> I thought using loops was cheating, so I programmed my own using samples. I then thought using samples was cheating, so I recorded real drums. I then thought that programming it was cheating, so I learned to play drums for real. I then thought using bought drums was cheating, so I learned to make my own. I then thought using premade skins was cheating, so I killed a goat and skinned it. I then thought that that was cheating too, so I grew my own goat from a baby goat. I also think that is cheating, but I’m not sure where to go from here. I haven’t made any music lately, what with the goat farming and all.

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4. CaptainOfCoit ◴[20 Oct 25 17:00 UTC] No.45646237[source]▶
How is tributes to lords from vassals related to communication? Oh wait, you didn't mean that meaning of the word "aid"? But words only have one meaning...
5. latexr ◴[20 Oct 25 17:04 UTC] No.45646294[source]▶
> No, words have quite definite meanings.

Were that the case, “literally” would not literally mean both itself and its opposite.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/misuse-of-literally

Words change meaning frequently throughout history, depending on how they are (mis)used. Or they can change meaning depending on context or part of the country/world.

https://www.vox.com/2015/11/29/9806038/great-british-baking-...

Sometimes drastically.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TooAfraidToAsk/comments/kc41mu/why_...

> Otherwise, they are not an aid to communication.

I do agree with you that it makes it harder, but communication does depend on more than just the words.

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6. dsr_ ◴[20 Oct 25 17:05 UTC] No.45646302[source]▶
Meanwhile, that person learned the valuable skills of programming loops, recording, playing, and making drums, and goat farming; I suspect they may be happier doing some of those things than making music from other people's loops, which is where they started.

I bet they met a bunch of interesting people along the way.

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7. voakbasda ◴[20 Oct 25 17:12 UTC] No.45646391{3}[source]▶
Literally not meaning literally is literally an example of the enshitification of language.
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8. latexr ◴[20 Oct 25 17:23 UTC] No.45646549{4}[source]▶
> the enshitification of language

Good example of words losing their meaning. “Enshittification” is barely an infant as a word and it has a very specific meaning, but people are already using to mean “something I dislike”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

9. cakeday ◴[20 Oct 25 21:46 UTC] No.45649839[source]▶
That's actually not correct at all.
10. bigstrat2003 ◴[21 Oct 25 05:34 UTC] No.45652784{3}[source]▶
> Were that the case, “literally” would not literally mean both itself and its opposite.

It doesn't mean the opposite. People misuse it a lot in that way, but they are quite wrong.

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11. latexr ◴[21 Oct 25 09:34 UTC] No.45654010{4}[source]▶
Read the link and follow the definition. The “figurative”, “for emphasis” usage of literally was officially added to dictionaries, meaning it is official it means that, whether we like it or not. Whenever you tell people they are wrong for that usage of “literally”, you are now the wrong one.

You are advocating for prescriptivism, but descriptivism is a perfectly valid approach to language.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/descriptive-vs-presc...

We all use plenty of words by their “wrong” meaning, because they changed over time and before we were born.

12. account42 ◴[21 Oct 25 11:30 UTC] No.45654582{3}[source]▶
Very possible but if they go an tell someone using loops that they aren't really making music they'd still be an asshole.

Managing your own hardware can be fun and rewarding but it isn't actually required for the original goal of regaining control over your digital life. And it's not like if you start with a VPS you can never move to your own hardware in case you find building on someone else's service too limiting.