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Posted: Sat, 19 Mar 2022 19:44
Last edited: Thu, 28 Apr 2022 20:05
Tags: philosophy free-software self-hosting
So this morning I watched a new video released by ThrillSeeker along with my morning coffee. He talked about Facebooks new name and idea Meta and The Metaverse. He makes a lot of good points about Meta and how they want to basically change the internet into its next stage. I recommend you watch the video.
Watching this made me think a bit. One of my goals is to be independent from others services in order to do all my computing. Which means I don't want to be dependent on Discord for chatting and voice. I don't want to be dependent on Twitter for social media. I don't want to be dependent on YouTube and Twitch for video streaming. The big issue is that most of these services are operated by someone else except its primary users. I think that is wrong.
I am a member of a few communities and we all use Discord as our main source of communication. But why? It is convenient and it works. Discord is a good service and it satisfies all of our needs. But what if Discord decides that it does not want to host us anymore for any reason? Or maybe they read our chat logs without us knowing? Wouldn't that be wrong? What would we do then?
My main profession is being a server administrator and I like tinkering with servers and setting up services for people to use. For me to try another chat application instead of Discord is not a problem. However, most people just want to start a program and be good. And that is okay. Not everyone needs to know server related stuff. But I would argue that everyone at least know one person who knows server stuff. Or knows a person that knows a person. Ask them for help or hire them.
I remember when I first heard of Discord. Me and my friends used Skype at the time and I fought really hard to get them to try out Discord. And once people tried it they stayed. People don't like change, especially if it is to something not as convenient or more difficult. Companies are very good at making easy and convenient solutions and that is good. But it often makes you dependent on that company which is not so good.
Most services that we use today have a GPL licenced equivalent. For Discord it could be Mumble and XMPP. For YouTube and Twitch it could be PeerTube. For Twitter and Facebook it could be Mastodon. Any of these services could be hosted by someone in your community and for the sole purpose of benefiting your community. Most of these services are also made to connect to other communities who run the same service so you won't be stuck in your own bubble either.
"But Discord is free and hosting your own cost money and is inconvenient." Nothing is free in life. Discord and YouTube are making money in some way or another. Be it selling your data or forcing you to waste your time on ads. I personally think that if you are going to pay with privacy and time, may it as well be money instead. They can also remove you from their platforms for no reason at all.
I can't convince people to change their computer habits. I can only suggest what should be done in my view. I have my own goals and want people to think in the same way if possible. Using a service that you know you have full control over is a very good feeling and I wish more people could have it.