this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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"Everyone should be hosting a server" was NOT my point, sorry if I got misunderstood. My mother could in no way host an XMPP server on her own - but I could register her an account on mine.
Rather, I meant: a) if you can host it, suggest your friends and family to use your server; b) if you can't - that is still better: with multiple public servers available, there is no single point of failure, you can choose a server in whatever jurisdiction you want, or even an onion/i2p one.
Sorry for being harsh at the end. I just see this notion too often.
But still, your option b) is not self hosted. Maybe a better word to use would be decentralized then?
Selfhost able. But yeah, "decentralized" would be indeed a more fitting term.
That's just pedantry. 'Selfhosted' never meant that every single user has to host it themselves.
It’s not pedantry, it’s using the right terminology.
And yes, self hosted means hosted by yourself. It’s in the name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hosting_(web_services)
The promise of self hosting is that you own your data which may be better for privacy/security if you know what you are doing. The same doesn’t apply if you have to trust a third party, even if it is a friend/family member who provides you with a service they host. They become a service provider to you.
A lot of selfhosters share with family. I'm not gonna make my wife spin up her own servers when she can use mine.
And what would you call your wife in this scenario? A selfhoster? Or a user of a service hosted by boonhet?
She’s not using a selfhosted service, she’s using a boonhet-hosted service. Because she has no control over the service or her data.
That's just being overly pedantic.
That's called 'peer-to-peer', not 'hosting'.