Just filled it out in case you still need answers. Small note, your education answers don't include "none". While uncommon, some people never finished school and there is no option for that.
this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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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!
I believe self hosting saves me money in the short term
i believe self hosting saves me money in the long run
I can add to the voices here that have this as one big consideration. With some second-hand hardware, it's very cheap to set up almost unlimited cloud space for personal use.
That, and a lot of questions about ease of use too, but I answered them neutral because some are bears to set up, others are one click. Idk it depends.
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Not to mention that a lot of self-hosting can be done on hardware you already had laying around.
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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.
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!
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.
Yeah, it surprised me too! If you want to read more about it, check out the paper titled "Towards Privacy and Security in Private Clouds: A Representative Survey on the Prevalence of Private Hosting and Administrator Characteristics" by Gröber et al. (2024).
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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. :)
i smoked some good weed like half an hour ago, do i need to wait
I'm old enough to consider the framing of the question to be weirdly loaded.
It does not feel that long ago where people would be asked to justify entrusting their product's functions and data to a bunch of strangers who can make unilateral decisions about your service with zero comeback. Now we're being asked to justify not doing that.
Thank you for your comment. The use of similar statements is a common practice in survey research, as it helps to capture various dimensions of a construct more reliably and provides a clearer understanding of individual perspectives.
Regarding your concern, the purpose of this study is not to ask anyone to justify or defend their choices, whether it’s about using third-party services or self-hosting. Instead, we aim to identify the factors that influence such decisions, from a scientific standpoint, to better understand the motivations behind them. The goal is not to judge whether one choice is better than another, but to gain insights into the different considerations that shape people’s decisions when it comes to managing their data and services. Thank you again for taking the time to complete the survey.
Sure, I'm just bemoaning the fact that you've taken cloud hosting to be the default. It's as much a complaint about the world in general as anything specific to you. Good luck with it all.
Totally understand your concern, and you're right, the assumption of cloud as a default can be frustrating in many ways.
That said, this framing partly reflects the state of the academic literature: in the past 10–15 years, cloud adoption (especially SaaS) has been extensively studied, to the point where it often feels "default" in research too. In contrast, self-hosting has been far less explored, which is exactly why we're doing this study—to help fill that gap and highlight its relevance, especially in academic contexts.
Thanks again for your thoughts and for the good wishes! :)
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).
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I have answered, and had to put "Other" in employment status because I am self employed. An option for self employment would have been useful in my opinion!
Thank you for your feedback! You're right, self-employment could be listed more clearly, but choosing “Other” was absolutely fine and your response is fully valid. Thanks again!
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.
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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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I self host for the same reason I'm not clicking some random link: distrust lol
um.si is for University of Maribor in Maribor, Slovenia. It looks legit.
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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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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.
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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.
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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!
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.)
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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.
I hope you share the results when your thesis is done :)
Thanks so much – I definitely will! The results will be published in my PhD dissertation, and since publication in a scientific journal is a requirement for completing the degree, they’ll be shared there as well. I’ll make sure to post a link here once everything is available! :)
Hopefully you can publish in an open-access journal
if not it would be great if you could share an arXiv preprint :)
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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.
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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 possible
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