The hidden cost of self-hosting

Submitted ⁨⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨diegantobass@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

Self-hosting services has been a life-changer. And I thank this community for helping me a lot recently. Not only did I learn a lot more about linux, network and docker, but it helped me understand better how platforms and advertising just f*cked up the internet I grew up with.

But I wonder: do any of you hate how self-hosting services like photo- or document-management systems, or even a simple rss tool, forces you to sort your stuff out, and put your decades old files in order?!

I’m in the process of migrating my web browser bookmarks to linkding because it’s a GREAT tool. But I have like 2k websites to manualy check wether they’re still there, wonder at how cool they still are, tag properly and archive with SingleFile!

And that’s just ONE service…

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dieTasse@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
Actually, that is a thing I like. Going through this stuff can be tedious, but it brings a lots of memories, things that I forgot about, things I once wanted to do. And also, after cleaning my digital life I feel similar as after cleaning in the physical world - good - I did something, I made my world a tad bit more organized and a tad less overwhelming. (I should note that I am lazy and I always must force myself to clean, but I never regret doing that after I start 😀)

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- diegantobass@lemmy.world ⁨55⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Definitely second your feeling. I am similar in my relationship to cleaning. It feels like a lot of effort, but efforts feel good afterwards.
  
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danzabia@infosec.pub ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Have you considered the possibility that, if you have 2k bookmarks, this isn’t necessarily a self-hosting issue, but rather a bookmark hoarding issue :)

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- diegantobass@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I know, right!? Do I have to let go? Yes! Am I defined as a person by the shit I accumulate? No!
  
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  - dieTasse@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Sometimes hitting delete is the best thing you can do. Especially bookmarks, how many of them is out of date, or not relevant to you any more. And if you needed some of it, you can find it again. Sure, there is a few things a bit harder to find, but it should take less time than sort through 2k bookmarks. 😀
    
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- TrustedTyrant@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  That’s why I don’t go back and reorganize old bookmarks. I just start fresh every time.
  
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  - A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    This is what I do. I keep the old ones around for a while, and every time I realize that I’m not missing anything, and delete them.
    
    Worst case, I’ll have to root around in my backups. But it has never happened wrt browser bookmarks.
    
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redlemace@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
Are you kidding me? True, there is time involved. My biggest ‘sin’ right now is “home gallery” for it works on MY directory structure which I won’t give up.

The geoguessing game that hides in it is superb ! I’m still amazed with the images I’ve been able to locate. Sometimes 40 years back.

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hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
2k bookmarks? i would just automate the process of saving each of them locally and just forget it lol. if it’s somehow needed later search on the older archive

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roofuskit@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Karakeep. It will throw an error if a website is down and you won’t get tags.

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papigkos@lemmy.wtf ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I think that’s a feature 😅😅

Just kidding, I had no issue with my photos for example with Photoprism, but for streaming my music with gonic I need to make some modifications for all my album art to show up, and in some cases titles and album names…

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- diegantobass@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It is indeed a great feature but how time-consuming haha :)
  
  I inherited my music collection from my 20 years old limewire addicted self, so it’s a complete mess. I’m in the process of completing albums and using Picard to properly tag everything… 20 years of music collection…it’ll take me 20 more years!
  
  Anyway, I guess it’s a warning for anyone starting to accumulate data: think about metadata, formats and data-management. NOW!
  
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  - littleomid@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Same boat. I put everything in Picard and let it analyze everything. It turned out about 95% perfect. Haven’t touched it since, and I’m using the metadata it generated.
    
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  - CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I went through the exact same situation with my 20 year old music collection and MusicBrainz Picard and unfortunately this is just the state of music piracy even now as things are rarely tagged correctly or come from compilation albums, sample albums, or are just obscure and don’t have the proper tags available on the service. This is why I don’t mind paying for music streaming even though I selfhost most other media formats because you can put in days of work tagging songs and still have a jumbled mess at the end (Picard’s tagging template is also a huge PITA to use with some obscure legacy language).
    
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qaz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Can’t you use a script for that?

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utjebe@reddthat.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
There is a hidden cost to every hobby and everybody is willing to tolerate a certain degree of shittyness.

I have a friends that has a rather old car and something on it is always broken. But he has no problem having 20 different apps for appliances, instead of deploying home assistants. Or having ads everywhere and even trying pihole or at least NextDNS.

On the other hand, I see my car as a transportation tool and when I need it I want to use it without worrying about some random part exploding. But I have no problem running Proxmox and hosting tons of services for my family.

That said, I would definitely not self-host something like NextCloud or any business critical component for my business and just paid somebody for the service.

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- lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I do both - older vehicles always needing attention, and self-hosting shit
  
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- Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  You understand the value of risk management.
  
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Showroom7561@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Simplify as much as you can.

And remember, if you’re also self-hosting for family, someone will need to take over all that software and digital clutter when you’re gone.

I’ve been trimming as much as I can on my NAS, including only keeping the most important self-hosted software and heavily purging old files and backups.

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- diegantobass@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This. I’m not that old yet, but the realization hit me in the face pretty hard. And all the more reasons to sort it out. And definitely simplify. Or “make it usable” let’s say.
  
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themakara@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Yes and no. A lot of sorting and optimizing processes can be done via scripts. For example, I had chatgpt generate one that finds audio streams in videos that are not in the language I need. Manual verification and then let another script remove the remaining lists streams that I don’t need.

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CoyoteFacts@piefed.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
It's important to use services with a workflow that works for you; not every popular service is going to be a good fit for everyone. Find your balance between exhaustive categorization and meaningless pile of data, and make sure you're getting more out than you're putting in. If you do decide that an extensive amount of effort is worth it, make sure that the service in question is able to export your data in a data-rich format so that you won't have to do it all again if you decide to move to a different tool.

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observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Hate? Digital decluttering feels really good, for me anyway.

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- diegantobass@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Pain feels good. It’s like sport, is it? Is it sport? I’m healthy.
  
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catloaf@lemm.ee ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
If you really access them that infrequently, are they actually worth keeping?

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- Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Plus if they’re links, how many still work?
  
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  - diegantobass@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Actualy a lot more than I thought, and they bring joy, as souvenirs :)
    
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damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Thanks for mentioning SingleFile. I’m not using it right now.

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- diegantobass@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The workflow with linkding and the linkding injector is gold.
  
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coper@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Make sure you check karakeep.app, because it has, at least, automatic tagging and full text search on the bookmarks

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tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Isn’t that the goal? If you have an old drawer full of unorganized stuff, implementing a selfhosted management tool is getting an organizer and thinking about how to fill it, but you still have to sort your stuff in.

The only selfhosted thing where I really have to re-organize is my documents in paperless but I’m so glad to finally have it all organized and searchable instead of some hot mess of an inconsistent folder structure.

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- diegantobass@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I’m in the long process of paperlessing. It’s THE perfect example of that (not so) hidden cost. But there’s no lying or trying to sell you magic. You put effort in a systematization that empowered by a great tool and a well thought out and tried model, and voila, winning.
  
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- diegantobass@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Thinking back on you rhetorical question, I think it’s just it.
  
  It’s the goal. The goal was always to try and make me think that I am not just simply taking care of my stuff (and by extension myself). Because taking care (of yourself) isn’t valorized in a capitalist society.
  
  Fuck it all. I’m putting YEARS of work into just sorting myself out.
  
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MTK@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
You could use an llm with an mcp to the local filesystem and hope it can do it for you

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- diegantobass@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Or I could not. Ever.
  
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noodlesreborn@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Idk. My folders are always decently organized since I’ve been nutty about since I was a kid, but the specific file structures different services can demand is a headache. This is why I prefer more simplistic services without a database, but there’s always trade-offs to be had with both options.

I’m a bit split on it, but I do agree that it can be annoying and when you mess up, services and links you’ve sent to other people don’t work and it can be quite agonizing. It’ll probably get better for me as time goes on, but man it can bite at times.

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ragingHungryPanda@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I didn’t move shit haha. Dumped OneDrive onto the Nas and mounted it for next cloud, I didn’t even clean out the photos, which I copied into immich. I did move some ebooks, but that was very few things that I have

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