Done. Nobody else wants to know why I have 3 RasPi’s running stuff around the house, so I get to tell you in the survey, lol.
this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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Just filled it out in case you still need answers. Small note, your education answers don't include "none". While uncommon, some people never finished school and there is no option for that.
Thank you very much!
I'm a little concerned about selection bias (because obviously).
I also want to know about people who are not aware of self-hosting. If they'd be interested or even try.
That’s a very valid concern, and you’re absolutely right to bring it up.
One existing study that surveyed the general population found that about 8.4% of respondents were self-hosting users, which means that in order to get enough self-hosters from the general population for meaningful analysis, we’d need a very large sample.
Unfortunately, we don’t have the funding or resources to conduct such large-scale research through a representative panel or agency. That’s why this study is focusing on communities where self-hosting is already discussed, like this one.
That said, we’re definitely aware of this limitation, and we’re also sharing the survey in broader, more general-interest online communities where we expect non-self-hosters (or people unfamiliar with the concept) to be more present. This will allow us to include comparisons between the two groups in the analysis.
Really appreciate your thoughtful comment — thanks!
I use self-hosted services in the following categories as much as possible...
That question could really use a "not applicable" option. I don't operate any home automation solutions, so any answer from me would be invalid, and neutral answers because the item is not relevant will appear the same as neutral answers because I use both self-hosted and externally hosted solutions (e.g. Mullvad for privacy and Tailscale to get around CGNAT).
I have answered, and had to put "Other" in employment status because I am self employed. An option for self employment would have been useful in my opinion!
I submitted a response but if i may give some feedback, the second portion brings up:
I am willing to pay a substantial amount for hardware required for self-hosting.
This seemed out of place because there were no other value related questions (iirc). Such as:
- I believe self hosting saves me money in the short term
- i believe self hosting saves me money in the long run
I'm sure you could also think of more. But i think it's pretty important because between cloud service providers and any non-free apps you want to use, it can be quite costly compared to the cost of some hardware and time it takes to set things up.
The rest of my responses don't change but if you're wanting to understand the impact of money in all of this, i think some more questions are needed
Best of luck!
I believe self hosting saves me money in the short term
i believe self hosting saves me money in the long run
I can add to the voices here that have this as one big consideration. With some second-hand hardware, it's very cheap to set up almost unlimited cloud space for personal use.
Done. Hope it helps.
People who influence my behavior think that I should use cloud services.
This question is going to get bad data. No one likes to think of themselves as being influenced. A more effective phrasing would be "...people I trust..."
If I have a file, I have it.
If google has my file, they say they have it. I'm told it's there. For how long? I dunno. Private? Hell no. Forever? Likely not.
This small discrepancy is the entire drive behind me selfhosting.
I'm a minimalist with selfhosting, a raspberrypi with a vpn connection, syncthing and a samba share is all most anyone really need-needs.
I downloaded music I bought online and copied it to my Google drive once. This was years back, mid 2010s, this album just came out for my favorite artist back then. I'd downloaded it back to another pc and a week later - poof. No more mp3s. @.@
Edit: just that folder of that album's mp3s, not my whole music library back then, just to be clear. Still, that was my first big burn from cloud services.
Can you elaborate? I keep a copy of my favorite music in Google drive just to download in different PCs or to keep a backup.
It was the Muse album Drones that I bought from the band's website. I thiiiink I shared a link to the folder to my netbook with a different account to download to, and then I didn't notice til later (maybe it was a week? A month?) the folder of just this muse album was empty.
Idr checking the trash can for my Google drive or anything. I don't think I got a notice because I searched "copyright" in my emails circa 2015, and nothing related to removing my files popped up.
Done!
Thanks a lot!