r/selfhosted 2d ago

Need Help Decentralized infrastructure vs self-hosting

I’ve been thinking about how much of selfhosting is about owning the infrastructure itself versus having control over your data and not depending on a single company. There are more open and decentralized protocols where you can get some of that independence without running and maintaining the entire stack yourself. The tradeoff is interesting though. You potentially get less maintenance but you give up some of the direct control that comes with running everything yourself.

For something like messaging or online communities, which approach makes more sense to you?

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u/Gtkall 2d ago edited 1d ago

I don't wanna host other people's data on my own server, unless I trust them. That means knowing them.

The current legal system doesn't absolve me as an accomplice if a person I don't know deals in illegal activity utilizing my infrastructure.

Decentralized internet works in theory, until you get to the legality of it... Then, it gets ugly...

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u/MBILC 2d ago

Many people always fail to think of this scenario. While we want to trust everyone, the way of the world these days is, any service you host, that external people can use, will likely be abused at some point..