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My way of rebelling against techbros and autocrats:

December 2024: quit all Big Tech platforms and start #selfhosting essential services

December 2025: write guides for newbies about how to self-host

I'm also in discussion with a blogger I admire to start a podcast about tech... where we'll focus on solutions (instead of problems)... aiming to inspire others to join in...

It's been a really heavy year but these little acts of rebellion give me hope ✨

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in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

I would love to move from a lot of the big tech services that I use.

The likes of Adobe CC, Webflow and Intuit are destroying me with the price increases. But they are all essential for my work.

in reply to Andy Carolan

@andycarolan every once in a while some creator does a show & tell of tools they adopted as alternatives to Adobe. I know it's super hard to quit it... in my domain, I argue there is no sophisticated alternative to AfterEffects, especially when it comes to the wealth of ready-made templates. I'm lucky I'm basically on a filmmaking hiatus so I don't have to deal with that...
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

I have looked into it on a few occasions, and was close to moving to Affinity. But then Canva bought them.

I remember you saying about AE. It's definitely most people's go-to app for that kind of thing.

Even between just Adobe, Webflow and Quickbooks, I'm paying over £100 a month 😩

in reply to Andy Carolan

@andycarolan £100 a month for these three?!?! OMGGGGGGGGG 😱

This is precisely why I switched to Pixelmator Pro for graphics and DaVinci Resolve for video editing.

These prices are extortionate!!!

in reply to iloo

@Iloo thanks! Most people on the Fediverse will already be familiar with privacy and FOSS tools we'll recommend. But we think the podcast could be great for Fedi people's spouses, parents, siblings, cousins and friends who think that adopting these tools is "too hard" or "too time consuming".

Oh and the cherry on top is that we plan to use @Castopod for it 🤗

in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

This is a target audience that certainly needs the help and guidance.
I’m doing that for my family, in-laws, parents, friends and neighbours.
Will certainly tune them to such a podcast if I will provide non techies the tool, tips, insights and most importantly the courage to take the first steps themselves or purchase managed services from ethical providers.
This entry was edited (12 hours ago)
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

Great idea 🙌🏻 !

I think a podcast could reach even more ppl, who rather listen to podcasts than reading longer blogs. Maybe even with guests sometimes 🤷🏻?

With your projects you’re not just giving yourself hope, but also others 😊 🚀

in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

I hope more and more people embrace open source and self hosting.

Unfortunately, most of the people don't care and bringing awareness is a great way to change minds. Good luck with the podcast. Will check it out.

in reply to Dimitar Stoev

@stoev thank you! and trust me, we all struggle convincing friends and family to adopt FOSS or privacy-focused tools. I struggle daily!

I'm just hoping our podcast could spark conversations and do a gentle push for those who are curious... to take a leap of faith and try these tools 🥲

in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

one of my biggest struggles is finding time for patch management. Does Yuno host make patching Mastodon a simple "update" button?

I appreciate your work bringing attention to these projects keep it up 👍

in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

Hell yeah! I wanted brush up on my IT skills so I set up a homeserver with virtualization in Nov 2024 and being able to divorce from Big Tech as it fell in line with fascism in 2025 was so liberating.
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

your departure from big tech and embrace of open source and foss mirrors my own personal journey also in timeline!

I’ve been planting the seeds to get my professional livelihood from ethical tech consulting so that’s my primary focus for the 1st quarter of the year. Then alongside I’ll continue with my mission of raising and helping regular people untangle themselves from big tech.

This entry was edited (7 hours ago)
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

yep the cost and knowledge makes FOSS and self-hosting feel inaccessible to most. In the long run it definitely saves much more, but anything to make it feel like less of a hurdle to friends and family.

I say start with having them practice booting to USB and VMs, dip their toes in and build their confidence.

in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

As a busy dad, i dont have the time to set things up any more, and self hosting is seldom plug and play... I set up Home Assistant on a raspi, but it took time. More plug and play self hosting pls! 🙂 And i dont want to have 100 raspberry pis running things neither, so some sort of virtualization would be nice also.
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

its so fun switching off these mega-corp platforms and apps. you realize you don't actually need most of them at all.
in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

still no simple FTP server that doesn't require 287302723 different config files with 0xDEADBEEF command line options.

Honestly if a ftp server is more complicated than `ftpserver $HOME --write --read` then it is a failed one.

in reply to Elena Rossini ⁂

Bonus points: Invite people who aren't technically savvy / motivated enough to selfhost, to use your services. You can be the agent of change for more people than just yourself! Maybe it can be your gift to them. Maybe they'd be happy to help you out with something they're good at.

#SelfHosting #MutualAid