Your help needed: PhD research on why people choose to self-host
-
I submitted a response but if i may give some feedback, the second portion brings up:
I am willing to pay a substantial amount for hardware required for self-hosting.
This seemed out of place because there were no other value related questions (iirc). Such as:
- I believe self hosting saves me money in the short term
- i believe self hosting saves me money in the long run
I'm sure you could also think of more. But i think it's pretty important because between cloud service providers and any non-free apps you want to use, it can be quite costly compared to the cost of some hardware and time it takes to set things up.
The rest of my responses don't change but if you're wanting to understand the impact of money in all of this, i think some more questions are needed
Best of luck!
Second this - so far it has cost me money, but as I am able to cancel more subscription services, the savings will add up.
-
Done, though some of the questions were redundant or weirdly phrased.
This is actually a technique to capture an honest answer from a respondent. Ask the same question a few different ways here and there, then take the average of the answers. (It could have been executed better in this survey, though.)
-
Page 2 seems to have a lot of redundant question.
I intend to continue using self-hosting services in the future if possible.
I will use self-hosting services regularly in the future if possible.
I will frequently use self-hosting services in the future if possibleThey are different enough in intention though.
I intend - I plan to try, but I might not.
I will - I am definitely going to, but maybe not very often or for limited uses
I will frequently - I am definitely going to, and it will be a common/important part of my work/life-flow
-
Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=lsThis study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
Done. Hope it helps.
-
People who influence my behavior think that I should use cloud services.
This question is going to get bad data. No one likes to think of themselves as being influenced. A more effective phrasing would be "...people I trust..."
Thanks for the comment — that’s a valid observation, and I understand how the wording might feel a bit awkward.
Just to clarify: the statement comes from a standardized construct called Subjective Norms, and follows the phrasing from the paper "A Theoretical Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model" by Venkatesh & Davis (2000).
For all independent variables in the survey, we relied on validated scales and established practices from prior scientific research, to ensure consistency and reliability. That said, I really appreciate your feedback.
-
Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=lsThis study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
Done! Happy to help!
-
It's true!
Starting with TLD: si - Slovenia; um - University of Maribor; feri - Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; lpt - Laboratory for Data technologies; and survey for LimeSurvey.wrote on last edited by [email protected]Self-hosting the survey form is an amazing cherry on top
-
I submitted a response but if i may give some feedback, the second portion brings up:
I am willing to pay a substantial amount for hardware required for self-hosting.
This seemed out of place because there were no other value related questions (iirc). Such as:
- I believe self hosting saves me money in the short term
- i believe self hosting saves me money in the long run
I'm sure you could also think of more. But i think it's pretty important because between cloud service providers and any non-free apps you want to use, it can be quite costly compared to the cost of some hardware and time it takes to set things up.
The rest of my responses don't change but if you're wanting to understand the impact of money in all of this, i think some more questions are needed
Best of luck!
My only quibble would be to swap “pay” for “invest” which captures both the dynamic of up front expense and expected savings from ending recurring subscription fees. That’s how I look at it. Every penny I put into my own digital sovereignty is an investment that will yield returns both financial and otherwise.
-
This is actually a technique to capture an honest answer from a respondent. Ask the same question a few different ways here and there, then take the average of the answers. (It could have been executed better in this survey, though.)
You're absolutely right, rephrasing similar questions is a common technique in survey design to reduce bias and improve reliability.
Some questions may feel a bit redundant or oddly phrased because we based the survey on validated constructs from prior academic research, especially well-established models like the Technology Acceptance Model. Using these standardized scales helps ensure the results are scientifically sound and comparable with previous studies - though I totally get that it can feel repetitive from a participant’s point of view.
That said, I really appreciate the feedback from both of you.
-
I submitted a response but if i may give some feedback, the second portion brings up:
I am willing to pay a substantial amount for hardware required for self-hosting.
This seemed out of place because there were no other value related questions (iirc). Such as:
- I believe self hosting saves me money in the short term
- i believe self hosting saves me money in the long run
I'm sure you could also think of more. But i think it's pretty important because between cloud service providers and any non-free apps you want to use, it can be quite costly compared to the cost of some hardware and time it takes to set things up.
The rest of my responses don't change but if you're wanting to understand the impact of money in all of this, i think some more questions are needed
Best of luck!
And I self-host precisely because of the money I save using surplussed hardware. I have a symmetrical 1Gb SOHO fibre connection from my ISP, so I can host whatever the hell I want, I just need to stand it up. And a beefy older system with oodles of RAM is perfect for spinning up VMs of various platforms for various tasks. This saves me craploads of money over even a single VM on cloud platforms like Vultr. Plus, even if I were to support a “heavy” service sufficiently in demand to warrant its own iron, it still costs me less than a year’s worth of hosting to obtain a decent platform for that service to run on all by it’s lonesome.
My only cloud costs end up being those services which are distributed for redundancy and geographical distance, such as DNS and caching CDNs.
-
Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=lsThis study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I use self-hosted services in the following categories as much as possible...
That question could really use a "not applicable" option. I don't operate any home automation solutions, so any answer from me would be invalid, and neutral answers because the item is not relevant will appear the same as neutral answers because I use both self-hosted and externally hosted solutions (e.g. Mullvad for privacy and Tailscale to get around CGNAT).
-
Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=lsThis study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
I'm a little concerned about selection bias (because obviously).
I also want to know about people who are not aware of self-hosting. If they'd be interested or even try.
-
Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=lsThis study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
Done. Good luck.
-
Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=lsThis study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
Good luck on your thesis!
-
I'm a little concerned about selection bias (because obviously).
I also want to know about people who are not aware of self-hosting. If they'd be interested or even try.
That’s a very valid concern, and you’re absolutely right to bring it up.
One existing study that surveyed the general population found that about 8.4% of respondents were self-hosting users, which means that in order to get enough self-hosters from the general population for meaningful analysis, we’d need a very large sample.
Unfortunately, we don’t have the funding or resources to conduct such large-scale research through a representative panel or agency. That’s why this study is focusing on communities where self-hosting is already discussed, like this one.
That said, we’re definitely aware of this limitation, and we’re also sharing the survey in broader, more general-interest online communities where we expect non-self-hosters (or people unfamiliar with the concept) to be more present. This will allow us to include comparisons between the two groups in the analysis.
Really appreciate your thoughtful comment — thanks!
-
Good luck on your thesis!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate the support!
-
Done. Good luck.
Thanks so much – really appreciate it!
-
Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=lsThis study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
i smoked some good weed like half an hour ago, do i need to wait
-
I use self-hosted services in the following categories as much as possible...
That question could really use a "not applicable" option. I don't operate any home automation solutions, so any answer from me would be invalid, and neutral answers because the item is not relevant will appear the same as neutral answers because I use both self-hosted and externally hosted solutions (e.g. Mullvad for privacy and Tailscale to get around CGNAT).
Thanks for the comment: that’s a really good point to raise.
Just to clarify: the statement "I use self-hosted services in the following categories as much as possible" is meant to reflect how fully you make use of self-hosted solutions in each area. A response like “Strongly agree” would indicate that you actively use and take full advantage of self-hosting in that category.
If you don’t use solutions in a particular category at all — whether that’s because you don’t need them, aren’t interested, or use only external services — then it’s completely appropriate to select a disagreeing option (e.g. “Disagree” or “Strongly disagree”). In this context, lower agreement simply indicates low or no use, regardless of the reason.
From a methodological standpoint, the data will be analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). This approach requires a complete set of responses across the measured constructs. If we included a “not applicable” option, it would create missing values in the dataset and potentially lead to excluding the entire response for that part of the analysis — which would significantly reduce the usable sample size.
That said, I really appreciate your feedback!
-
Absolutely, that’s our intention as well! Our university actively encourages publishing in open-access journals whenever possible, and I fully support that approach. So yes, if all goes well, the results will definitely be published open access. Thanks for the encouragement!
Best of luck!
