Self-Hosting: Farmville in 2026

“Technology isn’t a force of nature, it’s the work of people.” - Rutger Bregman

I’m a software engineer. I spend my days building, tinkering, and debugging. At my heart, I am a farmer from backwoods of Canada. This philosophy guides my life. I like pragmatic simple solutions, I value my independence, I like the idea of have tweaking my tools.

That’s why I like self-hosting. Its like digital homesteading.

Why it’s cool:

• Ownership of your data. You stop feeding massive corporations with every click, search, and photo. Your information is yours. You decide where it lives and who sees it.
• Customisation. Want a media server that works exactly like you want it to? A private chat system that respects privacy? A personal wiki? Self-hosting makes it possible.
• Learning by doing. Every server, every piece of software, every small failure is a chance to learn. You understand the machinery instead of just using it.
• Resilience. No more platform outages( gh ), bans, or arbitrary deletions. You set the rules, and you control your digital homestead.

It’s not about rejecting progress. It’s about reclaiming it. About saying: I want technology to serve me, not to extract from me. It’s a small rebellion against the endless engagement loops and rent-seeking platforms. It’s practical, it’s empowering, and yes, it’s a little bit fun.

We often treat the internet as this abstract thing “out there.” But the reality is that it’s built by people, and it can be rebuilt by people. Self-hosting is one way to take a hand in that work, to bend the digital world toward usefulness instead of manipulation.

It’s messy. It’s imperfect. You’ll make mistakes. But that’s the point: this is your system, your rules, your responsibility. And when it works, when you serve your own media, your own documents, your own communications, you get something big: freedom.

Technology is not destiny. It’s a choice. And self-hosting is a choice to make technology work for you.