A federated internet is forming. It’s built on open protocols like ActivityPub & connects services like Mastodon, Threads, Pixelfed, Tumblr, Wordpress and more into a connected network known as the fediverse. And everyone from tech enthusiasts to Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey seem to want in.
This is a distinction with little difference, which is convenient for them, because they can say well ackchyually we’re not stopping you from self-hosting
when in practical terms they are.
It’s not just convenient for them to do it; it’s how they are able to evade anti-trust action (not that the U.S. is great at it anyway but still). I also run my own mail server. It’s not impossible, and I wouldn’t even say it’s even hard. It’s just time consuming to set up (if it’s the first time), and there are a lot of hurdles to make it so impractical that it’s virtually impossible to the average person. Only the most patient or those who have a real desire to run their own mail server will even attempt it. Anyone can set up their own mail server, but most won’t because it’s not worth it compared to using something that just works from Google.
Yup, it’s very not trivial.
Carlos Fenollosa: After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel. The oligopoly has won.
Jamie Zawinski (JWZ) agreed enough to boost Carlos’ post and has been documenting his own email pains for decades.