Comment on Your help needed: PhD research on why people choose to self-host
skisnow@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
I’m old enough to consider the framing of the question to be weirdly loaded.
It does not feel that long ago where people would be asked to justify entrusting their product’s functions and data to a bunch of strangers who can make unilateral decisions about your service with zero comeback. Now we’re being asked to justify not doing that.
SelfhostedResearch@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Thank you for your comment. The use of similar statements is a common practice in survey research, as it helps to capture various dimensions of a construct more reliably and provides a clearer understanding of individual perspectives.
Regarding your concern, the purpose of this study is not to ask anyone to justify or defend their choices, whether it’s about using third-party services or self-hosting. Instead, we aim to identify the factors that influence such decisions, from a scientific standpoint, to better understand the motivations behind them. The goal is not to judge whether one choice is better than another, but to gain insights into the different considerations that shape people’s decisions when it comes to managing their data and services. Thank you again for taking the time to complete the survey.
skisnow@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Sure, I’m just bemoaning the fact that you’ve taken cloud hosting to be the default. It’s as much a complaint about the world in general as anything specific to you. Good luck with it all.
SelfhostedResearch@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Totally understand your concern, and you’re right, the assumption of cloud as a default can be frustrating in many ways.
That said, this framing partly reflects the state of the academic literature: in the past 10–15 years, cloud adoption (especially SaaS) has been extensively studied, to the point where it often feels “default” in research too. In contrast, self-hosting has been far less explored, which is exactly why we’re doing this study—to help fill that gap and highlight its relevance, especially in academic contexts.
Thanks again for your thoughts and for the good wishes! :)