Your help needed: PhD research on why people choose to self-host
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Done. Hope it helps.
Thanks, really appreciate it!
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Be prepared for some respondents to choose the middle option as a proxy for "not applicable," because that's what I did.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I chose the middle option for things I'm not hosting, but could see myself hosting in the future.
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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!
Did my part! Good luck!
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One existing study that surveyed the general population found that about 8.4% of respondents were self-hosting users
Wow! That's a lot higher than I would've expected. My guess would've been about 1%, or maybe even an order of magnitude or so less than that.
I suspect there's a tendency of experts in something to think of people who do it narrowly as people doing at least as much as they are.
The people who have a bunch of docker services, or complex multi-machine infrastructure are self-hosted software users, and probably in that 1-2% range. People who heard piholes are useful, so they bought a pi 3 and set it up are self-hosted software users. Somebody using an old desktop they got on Facebook marketplace for running Plex media are self-hosted software users.. and so on. So are the people in their houses, some of their friends and family.
Using that inclusive definition, being closer to 10% than 1% makes sense to me.
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Did my part! Good luck!
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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!
I get why you're taking that approach but you risk serious misclassification bias. The replies have stated people are using both "disagree" and "neither agree nor disagree" to indicate they are not hosting a particular kind of service. From your description of your research it sounds like disagree and strongly disagree should indicate that the individual uses company hosted services instead of self hosted services for those domains. The relationship between views on privacy and types of services self hosted is going to be confounded by that.
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One existing study that surveyed the general population found that about 8.4% of respondents were self-hosting users
Wow! That's a lot higher than I would've expected. My guess would've been about 1%, or maybe even an order of magnitude or so less than that.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]My guess is that it also included things like the 12 year old hosting a Minecraft server for their friends. Which, to be clear, is a totally valid self-hosting use case.
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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 did it for ya....good luck with your phd
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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 the thesis and I hope my data points can assist your research! I'm sure the community would love to see your finished thesis when it is done
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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!
If this was the expectation, then it should have been a checklist and/or had N/A available. I don't think your data for this section will be accurate since myself/others replying did not use it this way.
I used "disagree" as "I am using a non-self hosted service for this," the middle as "N/A" and the agree as "I am hosting a service for this"...
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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.
I sort of fit that category. I am aware of self-hosting, even somewhat interested. But I know absolutely nothing about it, and if I'm being honest, too lazy to research it.
Truthfully, I haven't owned my own PC/Laptop in over a decade. I just use the one I get from work if I need to do something on a computer. I preferred gaming on a PS4/5 so I could just relax on the couch with a controller instead of sitting in a chair at a desk. I recently got a steam deck and love it. I want to poke around desktop mode some more so I can get more familiar with Linux.
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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!
Hope it helps. There are whole categories of self hosted software I hadn't thought of before. Maybe I should try some of them!
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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, and link forwarded to my non Lemmy using selfhosting mentor. Maybe can get at least one more respondant. Maybe more.
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!
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Hmm. The first section about cloud service providers is a bit weird to me. There are providers which "keep my best interests in mind" as part of their business model, backblaze would be one. Their whole idea is to provide a good backup services. Encrypting my data before transit also doesn't make me worried that it will be accessed by them or any of their employees because they will only get some garbled mess.
Compare that to google, another cloud service provider. Their business model is to make money by selling me ads (foremost), they do that by gathering as much data as possible. Here all my answers would be negative.
This puts me in an awkward spot where I nearly every time answer with "Neither agree nor disagree", because there is more to it and not because I don't have an opinion.
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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.)
I have a feeling for that to be effective they should be spread-out and not appear one after another though.
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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!
Ad a German, I was confused by the second education question and what I should fill out.
(mapping Grundschule / Hauptschule / Realschule / Gymnasium / Studium)
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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!
Many of my self hosted solutions are just DIY cludges. I was talking to a friend of a friend on Saturday about media streaming and he told me all about his Jellyfin setup and then asked about mine and I was just like "I just store MP4s on an SSHFS drive and play them in VLC on my TV (which runs Linux Mint)." When the survey asked about the various types of software I was like "No... I don't use anything like that... wait... yes I do! I just don't use a prebuilt solution!"
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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]If I have a file, I have it.
If google has my file, they say they have it. I'm told it's there. For how long? I dunno. Private? Hell no. Forever? Likely not.
This small discrepancy is the entire drive behind me selfhosting.
I'm a minimalist with selfhosting, a raspberrypi with a vpn connection, syncthing and a samba share is all most anyone really need-needs.
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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 self host for the same reason I'm not clicking some random link: distrust lol
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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!
Because I dont need to pay rent for my files and I don't have to worry about AI and VCs trying invade my privacy.
