> My wife and I now have a computer in our house that runs open-source equivalents to Google Drive, Google Photos, Audible, Kindle, and Netflix. It syncs to all of our devices. It's secured behind our own VPN. And it's wholly, truly owned by us.

Good for you. But for most people, it is an endeavor with zero gain, meaning no positive impact to their daily life, if not full of negative impact.

A danger with the arrangement of this article is that it takes awhile to get to the point, which actually in line with your view. He hints at it in the title and the very next paragraph, but maybe you didn’t get that far?

> And this week, I want to share with you how I did it, what I learned, and why I think self-hosting is NOT the future we should be fighting for.

While I know what you mean, money is one positive thing. The rest, you only realize the day google blocks your account because some stupid AI flagged a picture and they think you are a risk and kick you out.

Zero gain? Say that when your Google account is flagged because of any number of nonsense reasons. Or there's an issue that simply wipes your data from any number of services. Or a court requests access to your data and you have no idea.

You're leaving your entire digital existence up to companies who will and have ruined people's lives.

I think it says a lot about how much we've given up that control over your data and access to your data is seen as "zero gain" or "full of negative impact."

It's wild how little people care about their own rights. Capitalism and hustle culture make it so easy to give up so much while receiving so little in return. The pressure to give up more is constant and people willfully lean into it.