What many people misunderstand about hosting your own content (like this social media instance) is thinking we somehow NEED a big audience or Big Tech involvement.

I'm perfectly fine if the world faded away and it was just the thousand of us here. It's like the early days of the web when we had small forums, nobody missed Reddit back then. Federation is a big plus, not a requirement.

It's the same with websites or IRC for me. I know people use Discord, but I still stick to IRC even if there are only about a hundred of us left. I know people use AI now and website visitors are dropping, but who cares? I still keep doing it for those who like to read.

I don't need the whole world involved for this to feel worthwhile. It's mine, I own it, and I host it for as long as I breathe. After that, it won't matter to me anymore, but I hope other admins keep things running the way I did.

#SelfHosted #SelfHosting #OpenSource #Fediverse #Mastodon #OpenWeb #SocialWeb