this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2026
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Self-hosted is a great way to go for those who can afford the initial cost and can get the setup done. I’d love to see more of it but I also know that most people won’t do that, and I get it because if I asked my mom to self-host right now I think her brain would explode.
Second best we can do is start using and promoting alternatives. Us nerds tend to be some of the earlier adopters. If enough users flock to the right platform, and if the platform is easy for non-nerds to sign up, then the shift may happen. Now is a climate where the desire for change is higher than normal.
No company is too big to dominate the landscape, the momentum and desire just needs to grow. And we should be careful of jumping from one pirate ship to another pirate ship. TikTok to Reels, Twitter/X to Threads, these are not the kind of changes we need to encourage.
But I’m not one for social media overall, so I can’t do much except inform my family and friends in a way that doesn’t drive them crazy. To anyone reading: don’t be that guy either, because if you pester too hard you’re likely to breed resentment and cause people to become further entrenched in their current habits.
This is exactly right. Which brings us to the 'half-baked' option of self-hosting anything. For example, if you self-host a matrix server for you and your friends and family (assuming you're able to get them to use it), your data, on your end, is relatively safe and you're in control, however, the others may have their devices compromised either by Google on stock Android, Microslop on Windows or iOS on Crapple devices, so whatever you share with them is still at risk of being gathered by these tech giants anyway. It's a very hard problem to solve. The technology for the solution is there, but it's unrealistic to expect everyone to just drop everything they know and are used to, since lack of convenience and friction is just too much for most normies to even attempt to deal with.