Your help needed: PhD research on why people choose to self-host

[selfhostedresearch@lemmy.world]

Thank you for your feedback!

We understand that the question about education levels may have been confusing, especially when trying to map the German school system to the categories provided.

The answer options in our survey are based on ISCED 2011 – the International Standard Classification of Education, developed by UNESCO. This is a globally recognized framework used to ensure that education levels can be compared across countries, despite differences in national education systems.

To help clarify, here is how the German terms you mentioned generally correspond to ISCED categories:

• Grundschule → Primary Education
• Hauptschule / Realschule → Lower Secondary Education
• Gymnasium (until Abitur) → Upper Secondary Education
• Studium (university studies) → depending on the degree (Bachelor’s degree or equivalent tertiary education level / Master’s degree or equivalent tertiary education level Doctoral degree or equivalent tertiary education level)

[selfhostedresearch@lemmy.world]

Thank you very much for your thoughtful feedback!

You’ve raised an important point: cloud service providers are not all the same, and their business models can significantly influence how much trust users place in them. We fully agree that there's a big difference between providers like Backblaze, whose value proposition is built on privacy and reliability, and companies like Google, where monetization often relies on extensive data collection.

The purpose of this section in the survey is to explore general perceptions and motivations behind, not to evaluate individual providers. However, we understand that this generalization can be limiting — especially for respondents who distinguish clearly between different types of services and trust models. Your situation, where you answered "Neither agree nor disagree" not out of indecision but due to the complexity of the issue, is very insightful.

Thanks again for taking the time to share this, it’s greatly appreciated!

[selfhostedresearch@lemmy.world]

Thank you so much, really appreciate it!

[selfhostedresearch@lemmy.world]

Thanks a lot, really appreciate it!

[little8lost@lemmy.world]

Felt that too. Its throwing all providers in one bucket which makes it very hard to judge

[illecors@lemmy.cafe]

Filled in the survey. A few notes:

• Some of my answers make no sense on the surface - like the "experiment with new technology" block (4 questions). I've answered "Agree" to all of them, because I have taken time into account, which is not represented on the questions. Long story short - I do love experimenting with new tech, I'm almost always the first one to try something among my peers, but at the same I never blindly jump in (I'm hesitant) as most of the "new technology" is just
  • Someone repackaging foss and relabeling it
  • Some LLM bullshit
  • An inferior product to what already exists

There are also scenarios where I have already found something that's the best solution for my case, so I won't even bother looking at something new, even if it might be the best thing since sliced bread for someone else.

• TIme and effort setting up/maintaining (4 questions). It doesn't take much time nor effort to set anything up now, but it did when I was starting out initially. I knew very little and a bunch of concepts hadn't clicked, yet, so it took me days to set up Nextcloud and about half a year (on and off. Probably a week or so if it were all squeezed together) for email.

• The performance and intent to use in the future questions are weird - they feel like the same question, just leveling off in intensity. I've selected the same answer for all of them. They probably should've been a single question with agree/disagree options swapped for intensity levels.

Good luck with your PhD!

[periodicallypedantic@lemmy.ca]

As a fellow comp sci graduate (different uni, long time ago) that doesn't fill me with a ton of confidence lol.

This could actually be a study on phishing lol
Or a less ethical study on virus propagation
Or maybe he has just gone rogue and his university hasn't noticed because they probably don't actually monitor what students are hosting very closely, as long as it's not causing problematic network traffic.\

I doubt it, but I'm still not gonna click a link that someone is asking me to click lol

[strider@lemmy.world]

Thank you, that is helpful.

[strider@lemmy.world]

I'll never understand social media. Maybe it's me (might as well be as neurodivergent, but then again might say something about tolerance and inclusion... anyhow) but I'd love to understand the downvotes.

The difference in education systems is not a choice of any of the conversations attendees and the differences in education system are fact.

Maybe a downvote for Germany? For not knowing by heart? Or maybe because I stated the issue. Of course, research helps but in details sometimes creates even more confusion so it's best to ask.

Communication as a way to be helpful. As I want to be to this research because I think it's a good statement as research to be done.

(Last but not least - I don't emotionally care about downvotes. I love understanding though.)

[deebster@infosec.pub]

Also there's that a file on a cloud service might change. E.g. Amazon sometimes updates ebook covers to advertise that there's a show - even for those who have paid extra to have the ad-free option.

E.g. the sticker-type graphic on this and that the title is updated to "The Fires Of Heaven: Book 5 of the Wheel of Time (Now a major TV series)":

[duamerthrax@lemmy.world]

If you're that vulnerable to shady URLs, you may want to rework your blockers or even spin up a VM. If you're that venerable you phishing, just don't give them your numbers.

[dialecticcake@lemmy.world]

Have you thought about contacting Louis Rossmann? He created an extensive video guide on how to self host using FOSS. Perhaps he'd be willing to highlight your survey to his over 2 million subscribers.

[jigglysackles@lemmy.world]

Good Luck Luka!

I feel like I'm a minority in this group in that I really don't like self hosting but I do it anyways because it gives me the things I want from a content/privacy/control/ownership perspective.

[limonene@lemmy.world]

This survey doesn't distinguish between levels of cloud service provider, so I was a little confused.

Virtual private servers, cloud virtual servers (like AWS), cloud-based software where you provide code or a program and the cloud system runs it on a server of its choosing, and cloud-based systems where someone else provides the software (like Google Docs).

[danieldekay@masto.ai]

@SelfhostedResearch Done. But I found the survey design redundant and repetitive. Could demotivate people to complete ;(

[irmadlad@lemmy.world]

• It's educational for those who have a lust for learning.
• It's fun.
• It's far more private than using commercial cloud services.

[blindfrog@lemmy.world]

I downloaded music I bought online and copied it to my Google drive once. This was years back, mid 2010s, this album just came out for my favorite artist back then. I'd downloaded it back to another pc and a week later - poof. No more mp3s. @.@

Edit: just that folder of that album's mp3s, not my whole music library back then, just to be clear. Still, that was my first big burn from cloud services.

[remembertheapollo_@lemmy.world]

Done. Nobody else wants to know why I have 3 RasPi’s running stuff around the house, so I get to tell you in the survey, lol.

[lordwiggle@lemmy.world]

Done. Many questions which are the same or almost similar.

[hupf@feddit.org]

Shouldn't the control questions / variations of the same be a bit scattered? For me they were all packed together.