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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Self-hosting services on your LAN isn’t as hard as you think.
- By self-hosting, you reclaim control over your data.
- It’s less likely that a third party will use your data to train LLMs.
I started using Google Drive, Gmail, and the whole suite of tools back when they were still invite-only. Back then, the cloud was an unknown entity, and many of us had no idea that it would become the backbone of both business and personal use. According to N2WS, the public cloud market alone will break the $1 trillion mark by 2026. Splunk indicates that 67% of senior executives say that their organization has accelerated its plans for cloud adoption.
That’s a lot of people using cloud services, and it’s only going to continue to grow.
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However, there is a growing number of users who are rethinking their use of third-party clouds. You can count me among those numbers.
For me, it all started with AI.
The AI conundrum
A few years ago, Google announced its plans for integrating AI into its services. When I first read that, my immediate thought was that the company would be using my work to train large language models. Given that for over two decades, I’d been writing my novels with Google Docs and saving them in Google Drive, that was a problem. In the end, I ceased writing my novels in Google Workspace and moved them into the safety of my local network.
For me, it was a no-brainer. I wasn’t about to allow my work to be used in such a way.
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Migrating my work to home was a smart move, and I will never go back to the cloud for that purpose.
“That purpose” has started to expand. For instance, I recently migrated my note-taking app to Trilium because I could host a server on my LAN so all of my machines could access those notes.
Self-hosting those two services alone has eased my concerns about my work being used by third parties.
What is self-hosting?
This might be a new term to you, and that would be totally understandable.
For example, years ago, I hosted a personal website from within my home (I had an ISP that allowed access to port 80). A few years ago, I adopted Nextcloud as my personal cloud storage solution.
What I’m doing is self-hosting apps and services.
Essentially, you install a server on your network, set up a service (such as Nextcloud or Trilium), and then connect to that service from any machine within your network. You are self-hosting that service on your LAN.
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OK, I can already hear the grumbling and complaints that setting up a server is too complicated for the average bear. The truth is, however, it’s not really. All you need to do is install Linux (which, again, isn’t that hard). It doesn’t even have to be a server distribution. You could install a standard desktop distribution and then install the necessary software needed to host the service.
Or, better yet, you could install a server distribution that includes a GUI, such as Rocky Linux or Alma Linux. Sure, you might still have to use the command line for some things, but there is so much documentation on using the command line that it’s often just a matter of copying and pasting.
Once you have that server up and running, you can then install the services and/or apps you need. If you opt to go with Ubuntu Server, you have Snap packages at the ready (so you could install Nextcloud with a simple sudo snap install nextcloud).
It’s not nearly as hard as you think, and the end results are most definitely worth it.
Why use self-hosting?
This is equally as simple to answer. As you probably surmised, the primary reason I use self-hosting because I don’t want third parties accessing my content for the sole purpose of training their LLMs.
But that’s not the only reason.
There’s also security and privacy. By allowing a third party to host your data, you cannot be certain if it is using that data to build a profile for you that could then be used for targeted ads. Or, worse, it could be selling that data.
I know it sounds a bit conspiratorial, but from my perspective, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
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Another reason is control. I want to have absolute control not just over my data, but how I interact and use my data. By self-hosting, I control everything. If there’s something I don’t like about a service, I can change it. With Google Workspace, you’re limited to what you can change. With Nextcloud, for example, I can add and remove from a host of features, and even customize/configure them to my exact specifications.
Try that with iCloud.
Essentially, self-hosted apps and services offer a more personal, private, and customized experience. Sure, it might take a bit more effort than just signing up for a service, but that work pays off.
Although there will always be companies trying to skirt the system and use our data in ways we don’t approve, any chance I can get to prevent such things from happening, you can bet I’m going to take it.
I would suggest you consider doing the same thing.
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