Disclaimer: I’m no expert on this.

I realized recently there are two common types of Self Hosters here.

  1. I work in IT and host some services for my employer so we don’t have to rely on the big tech companies, for economic or other reasons.

  2. I self host some services at home or on a VPS, as a hobby or for other reasons, but nobody pays me to do that.

The answers people provide seem to vary greatly based on whether the commenter is in the #1 or #2 camp. I myself have gotten answers along the lines of, “why aren’t you acting more like a paid IT person?” and it’s a little off-putting.

How to resolve this? Could we refer to one group or the other differently?

Maybe I’m making a bigger deal out of this than is warranted and I’m the only one confused?

If nothing else, I will call out my hobby status from now on when posting/commenting here.

Edited to add: TIL. I’ll use these terms carefully in the future. Thanks!

  • poVoqEnglish
    8•5 months ago

    Hmm, I think there are more people that are #1 and #2 the same time (not me though) and the bigger divide is between those that rent a VPS and those that run a homelab.

    • @vividspecter@lemm.eeEnglish
      2•5 months ago

      I think there are more people that are #1 and #2 the same time

      Probably where some of the attitude comes from. People are assuming that it’s paid IT people bringing their work home with them, which is a different case then a casual user trying out self-hosting without the broader background.

      Although I haven’t seen this attitude myself so I suspect it’s not that common, and probably just a handful of users jumping to conclusions.