Greetings, self-hosting enthusiasts and welcome to the Selfhosted group on Lemmy! I am Fimeg, your tour guide through the labyrinth of digital change. As you’re likely aware, we’re witnessing a considerable transformation in the landscape of online communities, particularly around Reddit. So let’s indulge our inner tech geeks and dive into the details of this issue, and explore how we, as a self-hosting community, can contribute to the solution.

The crux of the upheaval is a policy change from Reddit that’s putting the existence of beloved third-party apps, like Reddit is Fun, Narwhal, and BaconReader, in jeopardy. Reddit has begun charging exorbitant fees for API usage, so much so that Apollo is facing a monthly charge of $1.7 million. The ramifications of these charges have resulted in an outcry from the Reddit community, leading to a number of subreddits planning to go dark in protest.

These actions have pushed many users to seek out alternative platforms, such as Lemmy, to continue their digital explorations. The migration to Lemmy is especially significant for us self-hosters. Third-party applications have long been a critical part of our Reddit experience, offering unique features and user experiences not available on the official app.

As members of the Selfhosted group on Lemmy, we’re not just bystanders in this shift - we have the knowledge, skills, and power to contribute to the solution. One of the ways we can contribute is by assisting with the archiving efforts currently being organized by r/datahoarder on Reddit. As self-hosting enthusiasts, we understand the value of data preservation and have the technical acumen required to ensure the wealth of information on Reddit is not lost due to these policy changes.

So, while we navigate this new territory on Lemmy, let’s continue to engage in productive discussions, share insights, and help to shape the future of online communities. Your decision to join Lemmy’s Selfhosted group signifies a commitment to maintain the spirit of a free and open internet, a cause that is dear to all of us.

Finally, in line with the spirit of the original Reddit post, if you wish to spend money, consider supporting open-source projects or charities that promote a free and accessible internet.

With that, let’s roll up our digital sleeves and embark on this new journey together. Welcome to the Selfhosted group on Lemmy!

  • dogmuffins@lemmy.mlM
    25·
    2 years ago

    This is as good a place as any to ask… where should we set up shop? This community’s sole mod @Zoe8338@lemmy.ml doesn’t seem to be active.

    A number of different self-hosting related communities have popped up in the last few days. I’m concerned that without a single focal point we won’t hit a critical mass.

    • casey@lemmy.wiuf.netOP
      12·
      2 years ago

      I concur and am actively researching this issue as well. I, for example created my own instance but am not entirely sure I should be the one to host yet another Selfhosted community. I am hoping for a dominate 2/3 of them to win out, preferably lemmy.ml as it was the first I discovered. Alas, you asked a very pertinent question that I think you should keep searching to find. I did see the owner on Lemmy.world actually responding to his thread…

      We should absolutely instill the desire to keep this community alive though.

  • pvq@lemmy.ml
    24·
    2 years ago

    Self-hosted is one of the subreddits I visited most often, so very interested in having a lively alternative on lemmy.

      • Swintoodles@beehaw.org
        6·
        2 years ago

        Only becomes a problem if commenters/posters get out of hand. On a more mild topic like self-hosting it’s probably not a massive issue for the foreseeable future.

        • dogmuffins@lemmy.mlM
          14·
          2 years ago

          Hard disagree.

          Getting over-run by blog spam is entirely foreseeable.

          With a single dead mod it’s entirely foreseeable that we would have to relocate at some point which could be devastating when trying to preserve whatevers left of the community.

        • socsa@lemmy.ml
          4·
          2 years ago

          My friend would you like to hear about the newest trend in self hosted shitcoins?

  • Andrew@lemmy.munsell.io
    22·
    2 years ago

    I spun up my own Lemmy server last night in my Kubernetes cluster. It’s great to have the option and wasn’t difficult at all, and once Apollo is gone, I’m thinking I’ll end up using Lemmy exclusively.

    • blob42@lemmy.ml
      12·
      2 years ago

      With have the huge opportunity of finally escaping censorship on centralized platforms. I honestly never thought Lemmy would take off as it has in the last few days. I started to get pessimistic on the overall death of the internet as I grew to know. This might be a drop of hope in the ocean of corporate greed that’s destroying everything now.

      Will setup an instance as well as soon as I have time.

  • tiwenty@lemmy.world
    14·
    2 years ago

    Thank you, this is one of my favourite community on Reddit, I hope we can make something happen here!

  • dleewee@beehaw.org
    11·
    2 years ago

    I for one am happy to find a new self-hosted community starting here! It’s the one thing that kept me going back to reddit over the past few months but now am finding more and more I can shift my time here instead.

  • casey@lemmy.wiuf.netOP
    7·
    2 years ago

    I will be happy to share and keep people up to date with my projects over on my Lemmy Instance among other places. Please feel free to write anytime!

  • ratskrad@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 years ago

    I’m thinking about setting up an instance but am worried about costs - can anyone share any information on how much it has cost them so far? Especially the bigger instances, since usage might spike after the Reddit changes kick in, and I’m worried about suddenly getting a huge bill

    • casey@lemmy.wiuf.netOP
      5·
      2 years ago

      It cost me nothing really to add the instance but I’ve yet to add a bunch of people talking and communicating - thus filling my drives… In the past I used the Matrix protocol and while it’s entirely different I think for a moderate community we should be able to last a good year on a TB if we has some reasonable limitations on size.

      • MentallyExhausted@reddthat.comEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        Any guesses on bandwidth usage? I have gig down but only 40Mb up, worried I’d create a bad experience for users if I started getting any actual traffic. I have tons of storage though.

        • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
          2·
          2 years ago

          40mbit upload might be a bit tight in the long run, but enough to start out. There are ways to offload bandwith especially for images via caching so that might help as well. Text only doesn’t need much bandwidth.

        • darkfoe@lemmy.serverfail.partyEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          Judging from my DO usage network chart, with me subscribed to a ton of communities: minimal. Just a lot of API calls back and forth from federated servers.

            • darkfoe@lemmy.serverfail.partyEnglish
              2·
              2 years ago

              Thanks! It’s my “fun” domain.

              But yeah, you shouldn’t have any issues with bandwidth if you don’t have a massive amount of users. The big instances are running into bottlenecks related to CPU/disk speed from what I’ve been seeing vs network speed.

              • MentallyExhausted@reddthat.comEnglish
                1·
                2 years ago

                Got it, that makes sense.

                Would directing new users to small/self-hosted instances to take (auth/caching…?) load be good, or would it create longer term issues of having potentially unreliable auth front-ends when the bigger guys have better infrastructure?

                • darkfoe@lemmy.serverfail.partyEnglish
                  1·
                  2 years ago

                  The bigger instances mostly are fine on the auth side, it’s primarily pictures and some slow SQL stuff being worked on still. So best thing some users can do on smaller instances is be aware that the bigger ones may go up and down a little, so content may come in bursts from the communities on the bigger ones

    • dogmuffins@lemmy.mlM
      4·
      2 years ago

      I world encourage you to get a few other people involved.

      If a server ends up hosting the selfhosted community, there will be some costs and responsibility.

      Share the responsibility and increase credibility et cetera.