Other comments already pointed to some very good software solutions.
But I would argue that absolutely the biggest barrier to entry for the masses is hardware.
Restoring an old PC or making some cable spaghetti with some SBC is currently too advanced for average person.
Self-hosting for the masses would require some new form of home servers.
Something modular, where adding new components would be as easy as playing with Lego bricks.
Projects like Freedom Box were attempting this 10+ years ago, or even simpler, a home server that basically sits on your powerplug. AFAIK it sort of petered out fast, at least in the public mind, and I think it’s a shame. It had potential and was even more basic than the Lego approach.
@halm I use FreedomBox or want to, but it doesn't seem to support that much in terms of software, as I remember it once did. Perhaps I'm remembering wrong. I was hoping it would support more Fediverse server software, like some of the lighter fedi server software.
Right? Maybe the FreedomBox suite just feels scarce after the Yunohosts and the CasaOSs that have appeared in the meantime with much larger app offerings.
Nowadays people are spoilt for choice — and I’m not complaining! — so maybe there’s a market for a FreedomBox-like plug server with a Docker setup out of the box and a GUI to Docker hub?
Edit: It actually looks like CasaOS are trying for something like that with their Zimaboard single board server. I’m a little wary that the company is based in China but I’m also typing this on my Oneplus phone, so who am I to judge.
@halm I tried Yunohost, but have to admit it confused me right at the install stage. I'm getting older and it doesn't take much. FreedomBox had issues when I installed Wordpress. Something to do with permissions, which I don't want to change from the default Debian settings. The barrier of entry is still too high for self-hosting for most of us.
I tried yunohost for a few months and wasn’t perfectly happy with it either; the file system got too messy for me. The install isn’t the most straightforward but I got there in the second attempt 😉
Hosting a Bitcoin node is literally the last thing I would host. Almost 600 gb of garbage transactions so you can check the 500 bytes of your own transactions without relying on external services?
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