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Instead of spending 200$ a month on subscriptions, spend 300$ on a used PC, take a weekend to learn how to selfhost/pirate and then pay 5$ for a trustworthy vpn like mullvad. If you're in the EU, send data deletion requests to every big company you've had an account with. Start buying things off local retailers, not Amazon. Buy computers/phones either second hand or from smaller/more trustworthy manufacturers...
And most importantly. NEVER. STOP. COMPLAINING. ABOUT. IT. The moment the complaints stop is the moment that bullshit is accepted...
Not sure if this is really accessible for everyone.
It's probably easy to underestimate how difficult setting up and managing services can be.
You don't need to do everything I mentioned, doing one of those things is more than enough... You don't need to self host, I know it's hard, I'm just putting it out there as an option :>
There are IPTV options out there too. Their apps usually work with whatever device you have. Just sign up and get the app.
YunoHost is what I use and its mainly been smooth.
I set up a Jellyfin server on a 10 year old laptop that sits closed in the corner and I have access to play the content from my TV in the living room and bedroom, and any other device that I connect to my network and it was fairly simple. Finding content is likely the hinge that holds more people back. My lazy ass didn't want to have to go to the corner to acquire content so I set up rustdesk on my phone so I can remote to the laptop from my phone, turn the VPN on to hop to Madrid or so, and acquire what is wanted then remote to it later on to take it back off the VPN. (Allows me to do such when out and about, say someone mentions a movie or show when at work)
Was going to see if I could punch a hole with tailscale so I could leave the Jellyfin server local and just share the drive so I could write to it from "Spain" while read from it on the TV without having to switch the VPN on and off but haven't had a a few hours to spend on that yet. The shared drive is an old 5400rpm drive and it'll play movies at 1080p in 2 rooms without issue. (I don't bother with 4k, my eyes really aren't good enough to find the storage space use worth it)
I'm not really sure what you're getting at?
I've been self hosting for many years. Including mission critical data for my consultancy.
It's a great hobby and I'd encourage anyone who's interested to get involved.
That said, for people looking for a way to "fight against tech billionaires", migrating their google drive to a self hosted nextcloud instance from a cold start with no experience in self hosting is inadvisable.
They were talking about cutting down on $200 worth of subscriptions every month. I figured they were referring to Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Paramount or whatever other steaming services charge monthly.
I was getting at it isn't that hard to do. Could knock it down to ~20 a month pretty manageably.
It's not hard and there's plenty of people, like myself, that are willing to help you. Let's work together.
I'm interested in this a bit. I worry about setting up some sort of server that is going to be facing the Internet though. Is there a good guide or starting place for something like this? If I just want an easy or approachable solution with some limitations as a trade off for easy and safe setup? I feel like I've heard of Plex servers before, but no clue if that's the best way to go or not. Where would one start to learn more?
Are you just looking to share files or swap to Linux? If it's just Linux you can dip your toes in the water first: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install
That method does not get you a GUI though. You will be using the terminal. I recommend pairing it with MobaXTerm, an enhanced terminal, as Moba presents the file system in a windows like way. It's great for learning and you don't have to have the paid version, though it is a perpetual license.
I'd always recommend Ubuntu for beginners. It's not necessary the easiest, but it's pretty simple and where you'd struggle prepares you well for other Linux Distributions, or distros. It often comes with a windows like GUI.
There's also an option to "Try Ubuntu" by running it off a USB. It won't persist, or remember anything, between reboots, but that can be an advantage. I personally carry a drive with my own Live USB on my keychain.
When you're ready you can try setting up Dual Boot, where you choose to enter Windows or Linux on startup or jump in all the way.
You can run Linux off an old laptop, a raspberry/orange/banana pi or build something dedicated. I'm happy to help with any of them.
Oh no need to sell me on Linux, I'm a fan of Linux Mint and Ubuntu, but my current laptop is an Apple M2 Pro, so if I can keep using that as my daily driver, I think I will. I'm most interested in more of a file sharing server type of service perhaps. Some way I could decouple from Google Drive for file storage is probably a good entry spot I'd think. I have an Ubuntu laptop with a dead battery I've not turned on in years I could repurpose as a server I'd think. It started it's life as an MSI "gaming" Windows laptop, so it should have enough horsepower to be a file server if I knew what software to use and how to safely configure it and what software to use on my other devices to safely access it.
Have you tried just using a fileshare if it's just your other devices? You can VPN into a cheap Edge Router Lite and be able to access it remotely. I think you'll need a Dynamic DNS subscription for most residential locations. Your ISP may let you set a static one. May.
You'd need to secure the VPN, but it is a pretty solid setup. You can even get the Edge Router to act as a firewall or split up the network so you can only VPN into a specific segment of your network. It sounds complicated, but it's not too bad. A whole lot of I can guide you through it if that's what you want.
Tailscale may be easier from a setup perspective. I've never done a deep dive into the company and I'm more of a "do it myself" kinda guy, but I did like it when I tried it out for a while. It was definitely easy and effective. There's also HeadScale and NetMaker, but I don't have personal experience I can speak from on either. I wouldn't mind learning if you want to try it.
Tailscale does sound pretty cool, and could be an option. It sounds super easy to setup which I like. I have Comcast as my service provider, so I'd have to see what they offer DNS and Static IP addresses.
I have not looked at what all my fileshare options are but doing a bit of digging it sounds like maybe I should look at Samba and see if that would work. They don't mention mobile device support, but it is free open source software, which I love. I wonder if having a Samba service just for local network file sharing is a security issue. I would assume it is not, but I could be wrong. I'm willing to bet I'd need to be cautious with the configuration of Samba.
You don't need a Static IP address for Tailscale. Just the Edge Router setup I was mentioning. Dyndns has been my go to for years if you do need one.
Samba is a great option. I've heard people say it's a pain to configure it for Max or Linux machines, but I think I had to click 6-7 things and it just worked. Lol.
Thanks, I'll give Samba a try as that seems to be a free option for me to dabble with. If it seems to work well, maybe I'll explore this further. Samba seems like a good starting point though. I appreciate all the help with this! I may ask for more guidance later depending on how things go
Happy to help, man.
It may not be "hard", yet it's just not practically possible for most people.
It is practically possible. You just have to put in a small amount of effort. Anyone saying it's too hard has given up without trying.
I work in IT. Trust me, it's well beyond a lot of people.
I'm a software engineer and I had to quit self-hosting due to simply not having the time nor the ability to research and keep up with security, products that were going away, new ones, etc. I have a job, run a farm, and do housework and other work. It's just not in the cards for me.
I work in tech and I promise it's not. I worked my way through support and engineering and then did development. I promise people aren't as bad at tech as they appear to you. The only thing stopping people is laziness.
It's not "too hard", it just completely unreasonable to expect people in general to self host as a way to "fight against tech billionaires".
I can assure you that most people would find the amount of effort required to learn, implement, and maintain self hosted services to be unpractical.
It's not impractical. It requires effort and Americans are too busy watching Netflix and spanking the monkey to do much of anything.