this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
470 points (96.8% liked)

Selfhosted

59077 readers
594 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

  7. No low-effort posts. This is subjective and will largely be determined by the community member reports.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Currently, they've been content to get more money out of you without asking you, so you're right so far, but only if you consider your advertising details and personal information to be valueless.

They're expanding data collection and showing more ads as a matter of course for years now. When they can no longer get money from other companies because of you, they'll switch to nickel and diming you.

I find that it helps to think of transactions in a more reductive way, like bartering + money. I am trading X amount of money, Y amount if privacy, and Z amount of hassle for whatever service or product. Even though Y and Z are hard to quantify, they are real things with real value, so not considering them at all is surely worse for me, and what they're counting on.

I have found that nearly every mainstream online service I might be interested in presents a negative value proposition when calculated like I described, but everyone values their privacy and time differently, so your mileage will, of course, vary.

[–] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's really overthinking things. I host my movies and shows, I watch them from wherever. I feel like I'm not going to spend more time analyzing it, because my usage of the app is literally finding my movie and watching it, or putting it on for my kids. If my junk email gets more junk emails, so be it. I personally lost the privacy battle a million years ago, although I guess I do my best by not having Facebook or Instagram or anything of that ilk. I do exist, and so I'm fucked anyway, but I'm not going to spend energy that somehow doesn't get me a meaningful return on that energy spent.

[–] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

It may be applying more thought to it than you are willing to do, or be regarding things you don't consider important or valuable, but very many people value those things and find them worthy of consideration.

To "overthink" something is to expend more time and energy making a decision than can be objectively gained from making the "best" decision vs. the others. Your decision to not consider the non-monetary costs is your own and your prerogative, but it has no bearing on the objective value of your personal privacy.

You've decided not to participate in the privacy battle and so have lost much of it without a fight, which is understandable. Its a hard, thankless battle without end against powerful foes, requiring vigilance and continually gaining knowledge. I think it is fair not to fault people for giving up, but passively encouraging others to give up, too, is working for they enemy you've surrendered to.

Its OK to let people choose their own priorities and pick their own battles, especially if it isn't hurting anyone and entirely within their own lives like this issue is. People fighting for causes that you aren't fighting for, but still benefit from, is a public good. Someone defending their own privacy is done for their own good, but helps you, too. See "do not track", adblockers, the EFF, and countless other consumer protections as examples.

[–] tko@tkohhh.social 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I appreciate you putting it this way. There IS a battle happening to be sure.

Unfortunately, it feels like the battle that's being fought is between former Plex users and current (continuing) Plex users. It's frustrating as a continuing Plex user to feel like we are making all of the Jellyfin users angry just by existing. Some of us feel like explaining why our choice is rational, but that is often met with more hostility.

My hope is that we all (as self-hosters) can recognize that we all have different priorities and those priorities will lead to different choices. It's not wrong to leave Plex for something else. It's also not wrong to keep using Plex if it suits your needs.

(to be clear, I'm not at all implying that you were being hostile. This is just a general impression I get from several self-hosting communities when it comes to Plex versus other options)