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Comment by Entinel | Hacker News Reader

I really wish someone could convince me self hosting is worth it but more often than not it just seems like busywork. Do you really need to self host your static website? There is no real privacy gained and probably some security lost. Then you get into hosting more complicated apps, email, etc, and making sure you can access them from anywhere at any time and it just doesn't seem worth it to me.

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I had a huge paragraph in the article about decentralization and how important it's in my mind for the future of internet but I've scrapped it because it felt like I was a blockchain guy even without mentioning it. So I'll make it simpler.

Honestly I just feel awesome seeing those blinking lights in my room and thinking it's sending packets to other people.

If you live in a country like the United States with strong legal protections then they cannot make you unlock your devices to gain incriminating evidence as it's a fifth amendment violation. Depends on the jurisdiction. As long as you don't do any biometric Id and limit it to passwords they cannot make you verbalize or write down the password to unlock the device.

Moreover, no one can seize or examine your data without being a criminal. On the other hand, Google et al do this every day.

You may not care but these are real privacy gains

It can be as difficult or hard as you make it. If you want just nginx serving static files or k3s with multiple services on a tiny cluster is up to you. The benefit for me is that I can be confident that my data is mine. But mainly because it's fun and great for learning.

In my experience it's not much harder than navigating the AWS interface, where I often feel very lost. But of course YMMV.

> There is no real privacy gained

Why not? Other than I can't be sure that my device and browser doesn't spy on me I don't see your point?

What privacy is gained by self hosting a static site rather than using anything else?

It removes the exposure to a service provider.

One (or more) less service(s) to give your e-mail. If you want to see usage you can just check the page loads instead of having to add analytics because github pages doesn't share any stats. The visitors get the same benefits because it's one less site behind cloudflare. The big providers can't figure out (and possibly sell) your interests based on the sites you host.

Not my reason to self host (static) but more a welcome side effect.

I don't find it much work at all, actually. I run a webserver, a VPN, a mailserver, and a few other odds and ends. I probably spend a couple hours a month maintaining it.

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