I used to self-host because I liked tinkering. I worked tech support for a municipal fiber network, I ran Arch, I enjoyed the control. The privacy stuff was a nice bonus but honestly it was mostly about having my own playground. That changed this week when I watched ICE murder a woman sitting in her car. Before you roll your eyes about this getting political - stay with me, because this is directly about the infrastructure we’re all running in our homelabs. Here’s what happened: A woman was reduced to a data point in a database - threat assessment score, deportation priority level, case number - and then she was killed. Not by some rogue actor, but by a system functioning exactly as designed. And that system? Built on infrastructure provided by the same tech companies most of us used to rely on before we started self-hosting. Every service you don’t self-host is a data point feeding the machine. Google knows your location history, your contacts, your communications. Microsoft has your documents and your calendar. Apple has your photos and your biometrics. And when the government comes knocking - and they are knocking, right now, today - these companies will hand it over. They have to. It’s baked into the infrastructure. Individual privacy is a losing game. You can’t opt-out of surveillance when participation in society requires using their platforms. But here’s what you can do: build parallel infrastructure that doesn’t feed their systems at all. When you run Nextcloud, you’re not just protecting your files from Google - you’re creating a node in a network they can’t access. When you run Vaultwarden, your passwords aren’t sitting in a database that can be subpoenaed. When you run Jellyfin, your viewing habits aren’t being sold to data brokers who sell to ICE. I watched my local municipal fiber network get acquired by TELUS. I watched a piece of community infrastructure get absorbed into the corporate extraction machine. That’s when I realized: we can’t rely on existing institutions to protect us. We have to build our own. This isn’t about being a prepper or going off-grid. This is about building infrastructure that operates on fundamentally different principles:
Communication that can’t be shut down: Matrix, Mastodon, email servers you control
File storage that can’t be subpoenaed: Nextcloud, Syncthing
Passwords that aren’t in corporate databases: Vaultwarden, KeePass
Media that doesn’t feed recommendation algorithms: Jellyfin, Navidrome
Code repositories not owned by Microsoft: Forgejo, Gitea
Every service you self-host is one less data point they have. But more importantly: every service you self-host is infrastructure that can be shared, that can support others, that makes the parallel network stronger. Where to start if you’re new:
Passwords first - Vaultwarden. This is your foundation. Files second - Nextcloud. Get your documents out of Google/Microsoft. Communication third - Matrix server, or join an existing instance you trust. Media fourth - Jellyfin for your music/movies, Navidrome for music.
If you’re already self-hosting:
Document your setup. Write guides. Make it easier for the next person. Run services for friends and family, not just yourself. Contribute to projects that build this infrastructure. Support municipal and community network alternatives.
The goal isn’t purity. You’re probably still going to use some corporate services. That’s fine. The goal is building enough parallel infrastructure that people have actual choices, and that there’s a network that can’t be dismantled by a single executive order. I’m working on consulting services to help small businesses and community organizations migrate to self-hosted alternatives. Not because I think it’ll be profitable, but because I’ve realized this is the actual material work of resistance in 2025. Infrastructure is how you fight infrastructure. We’re not just hobbyists anymore. Whether we wanted to be or not, we’re building the resistance network. Every Raspberry Pi running services, every old laptop turned into a home server, every person who learns to self-host and teaches someone else - that’s a node in a system they can’t control. They want us to be data points. Let’s refuse.
What are you running? What do you wish more people would self-host? What’s stopping people you know from taking this step?
EDIT: Appreciate the massive response here. To the folks in the comments debating whether I’m an AI: I’m flattered by the grammar check, but I’m just a guy in his moms basement with too much coffee and a background in municipal networking. If you think “rule of three” sentences are exclusive to LLMs, wait until you hear a tech support vet explain why your DNS is broken for the fourth time today.
More importantly, a few people asked about a “0 to 100” guide - or even just “0 to 50” for those who don’t want to become full time sysadmins. After reading the suggestions, I want to update my “Where to start” list. If you want the absolute fastest, most user-friendly path to getting your data off the cloud this weekend, do this:
The Core: Install CasaOS, or the newly released (to me) ZimaOS. It gives you a smartphone style dashboard for your server. It’s the single best tool I’ve found for bridging the technical gap. It’s appstore ecosystem is lovely to use and you can import docker compose files really easily.
The Photos: Use Immich. Syncthing is great for raw sync, but Immich is the first thing I’ve seen that actually feels like a near 1:1 replacement for Google Photos (AI tagging, map view, etc.) without the privacy nightmare.
The Connection: Use Tailscale. It’s a zero-config VPN that lets you access your stuff on the go without poking holes in your firewall.
I’m working on a Privacy Stack type repo that curates these one click style tools specifically to help people move fast. Infrastructure is only useful if people can actually use it. Stay safe out there.
Just FYI unless you self-host headscale, tailscale is centralised and not private. They claim it is end to end encrypted but their proprietary centralised control server distributes the keys, so they could very easily MITM you.
Tailscale is good tech and good crypto, but Applied cryptography cannot solve a security problem. It can only convert a security problem into a key-management problem, and tailscale does not do decentralised key management.
Are you serious? I had no idea Tailscale was a “trust me bro” kind of operation. I’ve always heard “serious” people boosting it.
Like all the “selfhosters” and their Cloudflare proxies lmao.
just use wireguard. :/
There’s also netbird which has reverseproxy setup options recently in addition to the wireguard mesh.
Self host on a VPS
I agree with your post 100% I think. Removing oneself from big tech/data services like Google and Microsoft is resisting the regime. It’s especially useful for folks that may not be able to get out and protest, meet with their representatives, etc.
As for me, I’m running my *arr/media stack for myself and my close friends and family. Fuck Disney, Netflix, and Paramount. For our household, HomeAssistant keeps the lights on and SyncThing backs up our files to the NAS.
Spot on. Self-hosting is the most effective form of quiet, material protest we have. Every time your family uses Syncthing instead of OneDrive, you’re starving the machine of the telemetry it needs to function.
Running that stack for your inner circle is essentially building a “digital mutual aid” node. You’re taking the burden of surveillance off their backs and putting it on your own hardware where you can actually defend it. That’s the work.
Can your neighborhood communicate when the Internet goes down like Iran?
By… Stepping outside and talking to people? I think all neighborhoods have that ability, even if we don’t really use it much.
Quick question. Home assistant.
We are hooked on “Hey Google turn off the lights”
Is there a way to remove the Google from that but still use the voice aspect?
Edit: great!!! Thanks for the direction folks!!!
Yes, Home Assistant has this.
https://rhasspy.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Works great. My biggest challenge was finding a decent microphone setup and ended up like many do with old Playstation 3 webcams. That was a while back and I would guess it’s easier to find something more appropriate today.
What’s stopping people you know from taking this step?
I’m a noob when it comes to IT. (Even though in my family I’m the one people ask when they have computer issues lol.) I would really like to get into self-hosting and all that, and I think if I found some good guides I would probably be able to make things work, but it still sounds very daunting to me. Like, I imagine days if not weeks of sifting through online resources to fix a thousand little errors and issues that would come up. (Maybe I’m mistaken, maybe it’s all really easy even for noobs. Just trying to explain my feelings on the matter.)
Edit: Woke up to 10 replies lol. Thanks for everybody’s input and helpful links. I think this might become a future project for me, but not before winter 26/27 (for life reasons).
It is a skill much like maintaining a car yourself, or your own lawn/garden.
It’s pretty easy to get started, and there are certain ways of doing things that keep it pretty simple forever, at the cost of some flexibility.
But no matter how you do it, there will be a non-zero amount of work involved indefinitely. Just like you need your cars oil changed, your garden mulched and weeded, or your server patched and cleaned up once in awhile.
I use these analogies too, it’s like becoming a digital gardener.
I feel this deeply. I used to volunteer at a library teaching “Cyber Seniors” digital literacy, and the biggest hurdle was always the fear of “breaking” something. The truth is, the big tech companies want you to think it’s too hard so you’ll keep paying them with your data.
You don’t need to be a sysadmin to start. It’s not about days of fixing errors; it’s about taking one small win at a time; like setting up a password manager first. If you can follow a recipe, you can build a node. We’re working on better, no-jargon guides to make sure the “thousand little errors” don’t stand in your way. You don’t have to be an expert to be part of the resistance.
Don’t stop at self-hosting. We need all forms of community building, from organizing like-minded people to gardening, off-grid energy, etc.
My excuse was I don’t act for what I believe in because I don’t know how to. Your post showed me, I kinda do. I was doing it already, I should double down on it and most important help others on their journey. You’re a force multiplier today. Tomorrow some folks who read your post will be as well.
That means a lot, the force multiplier thing is exactly why I posted this. Building for yourself is a great start, but bringing others along with you is how we actually scale the resistance. We need more nodes in the network, so keep doubling down.
Dude like even 6 months ago Id read your post and would think alright man c’mon…
But now you are 100% right it’s getting tough and people will only realize when it’s too late. Imagine a far right government with palantir in Europe. That’s pretty much where we are heading and I try my best to get any of my data away from this sphere of influence
In the spirit of OP’s post:
Do we have a good repository of good guides that can walk noobs through from 0-100?
100%
I do find it funny that I offer so many friends and family access to these services, and they generally just take the accounts and never use them.
This! I’d say that the best we can do is educate. Over the last 20 years people got taught to be lazy and go with the herd. They don’t want to change, all their stuff is already “in the cloud” and “I don’t have time to go tinker with that nerd stuff, I need something that works”.
“Why learn a new messaging app if everyone is using WhatsApp already”
– some of my friends and acquaintances 2025
Because you, and everyone, is in a huge bubble.
Normal people don’t give a shit where stuff is hosted, or if it’s hosted at all. The vast majority of people couldn’t care less what happens to their catpics if their phone gets crushed and they don’t want to use a separate messaging platform just to talk to you.
The things you think are important absolutely don’t matter to them. Most people don’t give a single second of thought to where their documents should live, and will just download it again on a second device instead of synchronizing anything.
It’s really nice that these things exist, but why would someone do anything with them if they literally don’t have a purpose for it?
To the folks in the comments debating whether I’m an AI: I’m flattered by the grammar check
This is the world we live in. If you can actually string words together into grammatically correct sentences, then you are AI. It matters not whether you are or you aren’t. Like the witch hunts of Salem, all that is necessary is the accusation. I personally don’t care if you used AI, the message resonates. Don’t let 'em give you shit about your pony tail.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters AP WiFi Access Point DNS Domain Name Service/System IP Internet Protocol LXC Linux Containers NAS Network-Attached Storage NAT Network Address Translation NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers PiHole Network-wide ad-blocker (DNS sinkhole) Plex Brand of media server package PoE Power over Ethernet SMB Server Message Block protocol for file and printer sharing; Windows-native SSD Solid State Drive mass storage Unifi Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand VPN Virtual Private Network VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting) Zigbee Wireless mesh network for low-power devices
[Thread #7 for this comm, first seen 10th Jan 2026, 03:15] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
I was just thinking this week, that those who self host (and more importantly, those who program the code we self host), are at the front line of the modern digital resistance: in the sense that the world is burning due to the greed of the tech bros that run our daily lives. Convienience for the masses is what gives them power over us, and any one who rejects their systems is helping to fight back.
Voting with your wallet helps, so not giving them your money is the first step. Then managing and keeping your own data private is the next one.
Great post, can’t agree more.
But instead of relying on Tailscale (US company) I use plain mTLS for securing my services. It’s about the same security level, but without active vpn clients drawing energy and without external dependency.
Works really great, can definitely recommend it.
Great points, and there’s some amazing discussions going on here!
One thing I’d like to add is EVERYONE needs to start setting up some meshtastic nodes. It’s really easy to setup (just hook up a USB cable from your computer to a esp32 board, visit a website to get the configuration, and that’s pretty much it), it’s cheap (as little as $30) and it is secure. Build 2 nodes (one to leave at home, and another for your backpack). This way you’ll be able to communicate should the Internet become unavailable or unsafe. You can also use this at a protest so that you still have a means of communication without needing to bring your phone that the Feds will be able to track.
I started with Meshtastic, then started getting into MeshCore since it seems like it scales much better.
It is disappointing that there’s already some fragmentation, considering that this is a small community to begin with. Hopefully both can flourish.
In a fascistic enough world where this would matter, people who abstain from the system are automatically flagged to be shot too, just fyi. You gotta also fill the normie services with conformist content to not become a detected anomaly if you really want to do it properly.
This is the “Gray Man” strategy. If you have zero digital footprint in 2026, that absence of data becomes a data point itself. Anomalies get investigated.
I think we need to separate Camouflage from Logistics.
I’m not suggesting you delete your digital existence and live in a Faraday cage. By all means, keep the normie accounts. Post the cat photos on Instagram. Keep a Gmail address for the spam. Feed the algorithm just enough “conformist” content to look boring. That is your camouflage.
But Resistance Infrastructure isn’t about hiding, it’s about capability.
It’s about ensuring that when the “system” decides to de-platform your community group, or lock your bank account, or shut off the internet in your region during a protest, you still have a way to function.
Thank you for kicking this hornet’s nest. There is a lot of great info and enthusiasm here, all of which is sorely needed.
We have massive and widespread attention paid to every cause under the sun by social and traditional media, with movements and protests (deservedly) filling the streets. Yet this issue which is as central and crucial to our freedoms as any rights currently being fought for (it intersects with each of them directly), continues to be sidelined and given the foil hat treatment.
We can’t even adequately talk about things like disinformation, political extremism, and even mental health without addressing the role our technologies play, which has been hijacked by these bad actors, robber barons selling us ease and convenience and promises of bright, shiny, and Utopian futures while conning us out of our liberty.
With the widespread, rapidly declining state of society, and the dramatic rise and spread of technologies like AI, there has never been a more urgent need to act collectively against these invasive practices claiming every corner of our lives.
We need those of you recognize this crisis for what it is, we need your voices in the discussions surrounding the many problems and challenges we face at this critical moment. We need public awareness to have hope of changing this situation for the better.
As many of you have pointed out, the most immediate step we need to take is disengagement with the products and services that are surveiling, exploiting, and manipulating us. Look to alternatives, ask around, don’t be afraid to try something new. Deprive them of both your engagement and your data.
Keep going, keep resisting, do the small things you can do. As the saying goes, small things add up over time. Keep going.
[Edited slightly for clarity]
