
Host Your Own Content - nbrempel
https://rempel.world/posts/host-your-own.html
======
cocktailpeanuts
"They monetize your content and you get nothing" is such a cliche and mislead
rhetoric that it's kind of annoying. Especially because it always comes with
some condescending tone telling people what to do implying they know better
than the "dumb public".

When people write on sites like Medium or Facebook or Twitter, they know
exactly what they're getting into, thank you very much. They're not some
idiots who get "tricked" into being taken advantage of. They still do it
because they DO get something in return. And guess what? Your content is
probably worth shit anyway. Just take a look at some of the popular posts on
medium. They're just bullshit content and these people would have had no
chance at getting that much attention in their life if it wasn't for Medium.
I'm not saying Medium is full of bullshit content (although most of them are),
even the better quality content is not worth that much. They probably spent a
couple of hours writing that, based on what they heard somewhere else. These
effortless content should be taken at face value. They're just expressions.
Sites like Medium provide a plaza where you can express yourself and get
attention, but not all expressions are worth money. In fact most expressions
are not worth it.

Do you really want to make money with content? Stop whining about how you
can't make money with blogging, just think of blogging as a way to gain
attention, and do something that's much more high value with the attention you
aggregated, such as writing a book, building some tangible thing, or anything
that _deserves_ to be not forgotten. Otherwise your content deserves to be
forgotten.

~~~
spdegabrielle
> they know exactly what they're getting into

People rarely have any clue what they are getting into. Myself included.
Congratulations on having it all worked out.

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
If you keep a blog on Medium and you really had no clue that Medium makes
money from user generated content, then it's your fault. Welcome to 2017.

------
joaodlf
This can be applied not just to writing... Making videos? Host them, why let
Youtube monetise you? Steaming your video game playing? Host the streams, why
let Twitch monetise you?

People use these services for 2 reasons:

* Ease of use (and typically free, unlike Ghost - which the author linked)

* Audience reach

I don't use Medium for my own writing, I guess my goals towards my writing
aren't to reach as many as possible, but for many that is one (if not the
most, even if subconsciously) important reason to write/create
videos/stream/open source software...

~~~
merkaloid
Hosting a blog and put a couple of ads on it is one thing, it's practically
free if you just put your static content on S3.

Hosting videos or streams is a whole other world, you need actual
infrastructure and a lot of bandwidth.

~~~
z3t4
you can get 1 TB for 1 usd/month if you look outside aws

~~~
ChefDenominator
Link? I have to admit it has been some time since I compared services, but
that sounds like the _first_ TB, a highly unreliable CDN, some stupid low
number of simultaneous connections, or some other such lame artificial
resource limitation.

~~~
z3t4
Where I live you can get dedicated GBit transit for ca $310 /month. If my
calculations are right, that would be ca $1 per TB of monthly data transfer.
You can probably get it cheaper, but these prices do not leave much margin for
the hosting provider, and are basically "self hosting" prices. You should look
for unmanaged VPS's and don't expect much support.

------
austenallred
I used to host my own content, now I point my domain at Medium.

I get more than 3x as much traffic there, and I really enjoy the editing
experience so I publish more. Their design is certainly more beautiful than
anything I would ever create in the couple hours of spare time I have.

I don't have total control, but it's a trade off I knowingly make. I can still
own my own site and redirect the URLs if I so choose.

~~~
z3t4
you get 3x more traffic. but do you also earn 3x as much !? or how do you know
that extra traffic is not fake ?

~~~
austenallred
I'm not doing it to generate direct revenue, but I do see more sales coming
through the products I have linked, though it's small sample size

------
onion2k
_If the content you write has inherent value, why not host it yourself?_

Because of the risk. A 100MB video file that "goes viral" and gets 5,000,000
downloads in a month would cost approximately $30,000 hosted on S3 (calculated
using
[https://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html](https://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html)).
I can't afford that. Obviously I could take the content offline if it suddenly
blew up, but instead if I put it on Youtube it would cost me nothing (less in
fact; they would pay me.)

~~~
TeMPOraL
For websites, at least, this can be partially worked around if you _stop doing
stupid shit_. Just don't put 1MB of JS and a 10MB hero image over an article
if all you want is to deliver text communicating a message.

Maybe at 29 I'm an old curmudgeon now, but right now I'm building a new
website + blog for myself, with a simple, typographic layout, 100% static
HTML, and as little CSS and JS as I can get away with. Right now a full
article (no images) is about 28KB transferred, including a 11KB CSS framework
I'll probably cut in half before even minifying it. The assumption now is that
>50KB for a page (excluding images) means I've failed.

~~~
theandrewbailey
> For websites, at least, this can be partially worked around if you _stop
> doing stupid shit_. Just don't put 1MB of JS and a 10MB hero image over an
> article if all you want is to deliver text communicating a message.

Stupid shit... like hosting a video on S3, or really any static website asset
on S3.

~~~
llccbb
There is lots of discussion about hosting static assets like images or videos,
where that _asset/media is the content_. I am wondering what the best self-
hosting solution is for these cases.

Let's say I am a photographer and I want to create or share some image
galleries. Each image is big, about 10 MB and there may be hundreds of these
images (less than 1000). They have a very permissible license, and I want them
downloaded and used as wallpapers, for instance. I want the webpage traffic on
my site (over flickr) because I want to drum up business and recognition for
myself, but I don't want to risk my site going down under hug of death
situations. Low cost solutions are ideal because this is a side project.

Is it best to host the main site on a single server (DO droplet) and kick the
heavy lifting of image transfer to someone like imgur? What is the cheap and
robust solution to this sort of problem?

------
owenwil
The 'host your own content' argument is a good one, but also a tired one. It
depends what you're trying to achieve! Medium is a great way to grow your
audience, particularly if you're looking for reach but aren't looking to make
direct money off your writing, for example. If you're going to argue that
others are making money off your writing while you could, I'd argue that it's
hard to make _any_ money just from blogging now, and few do it correctly. If
making money is why you blog, that's pretty difficult these days.

My advice to most these days is still to host your own blog, but if anything
to avoid the commoditisation of your words. Medium is great, but it treats
your writing like everything else, and can't really leave a lasting impression
of you or your brand/personal brand. I think there's value in posting there,
but posting on your own platform first, then re-sharing to Medium later.
Content is a weird world right now, and blogging has become something of a
pain in the ass for most people to self-host, and generally the experience
ends up being sub-optimal (kind of like reading this post that's linked)
because the person setting it up doesn't know design/typography/whatever.

I think better advice is simply this: who cares where you write, as long as
you do it and don't let the platform stop you.

~~~
jrimbault
> The 'host your own content' _meme_ is a good one

Replace "meme" with "argument" or "advice". As you justly put it in your last
sentence.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I think GP intended it to mean something more along the lines of "cliché".

------
NeutronBoy
Four upvotes and the page is already Slashdotted... I guess this is why people
don't host their own content!

(I think that's the point of the article, not having read it)

~~~
tomfluff
He just seems to be talking about not letting other people make money off your
content.

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TSfwlW...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TSfwlWulR2QJ:https://rempel.world/posts/host-
your-own.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au)

~~~
nippples
He's definitely also talking about having control over your own content, which
seems to be a big issue with huge sites, such as Facebook or YouTube.

> Hosting your own content means you have control over it and the reader’s
> attention. By writing, you are creating value so harness it instead of
> giving it away for free.

Not to mention that by hosting yourself, you're not subject to "changing at
our discretion" terms of service.

------
LambdaComplex
I do, but it's mostly just "because I can."

I signed up for the GitHub education pack, which provides (among other things)
$50 USD in DigitalOcean credit. I spun up one of the $5/month droplets,
primarily to use as an IRC bouncer. But, since I now had my own Linux server
with a static IP address, I said "Why the heck not?" and bought a domain name
for $10.

So now I have an IRC bouncer _and_ a personal blog. (And a Quake 3
server...because I can)

------
trengrj
I find it slightly amusing that there is far more content in the comments here
on HN than the post itself.

~~~
corobo
I'm amused that it's an article about hosting content yourself and it went
offline when the HN audience tried to view.

> Hosting your own content means you have control over it and the reader’s
> attention

 _goes offline_

------
6stringmerc
Medium might be "selling" my work in a grand scheme, among the thousands of
articles that get recognized in any given week, but the site is an even trade
to me. I know what it costs in time and effort to host Creative Content and to
me it's one of many trade-offs in independence. Medium doesn't "own" my work
by Publishing it, and I can simply focus on composing things worth writing and
know that the platform will just work.

Also worth noting Medium is putting out feelers to start paying Writers
directly for Content. Based on certain terms. It appears to be part of an
attempt at a pay-subscription service model / experiment.

So, even in some respects, investing early on in my Medium profile (1.5 years
or so) and using it frequently, conveniently, has allowed me to grow into some
occasionally big view/read numbers. I know this because Medium has a good stat
tracking system, which, as a self-directed Writer, can give perspective on
Topics That Interest Me That Also Interest Other People. That's not monetary
value, but it's Content-related value I receive at this point.

The more important point would be "Own Your Own Content" which is a different
discussion. Middle-men and service providers can have a role. There are
reasons for me to pick DistroKid versus pursue a Major Label deal that would
probably include 360 provisions for a decade. And along the way they'd own all
my content.

Sites are cyclical from my perspective. Platforms come and go. Most simply
crumble under the weight of their own success because their great idea of Free
sometimes can't turn the corner to Profitability. Sometimes, heh.

------
franciscop
Because it's not a zero sum game. The value of your content in a blog no one
will see is lower than the value of your content in a distributing platform
like Medium. I'll even say it can even be negative taking into account
setup/maintenance time.

~~~
z3t4
you could do some advertising to get more readers.

------
elnygren
In other words: suffer from NIH and DIY because you are so butthurt that
someone makes money with you in a _symbiotic relationship.

_ yeah, this is how I see it:

Most of the time when you write something, it's because you are either
promoting something (directly or indirectly), building a brand (your or your
company's) or because it makes you feel good to "spread the word" on
something. Whatever the reason, you gain some value out of this.

Platforms provide you with tools and audience so that you can create that
value. In return, they want something too. Is this really so bad?

I'm a quite a capable web developer, but I'm not going to host or build my own
blog. That time is better spent on actually figuring out what to write (and
writing it).

~~~
Udo
_> suffer from NIH and DIY because you are so butthurt that someone makes
money with you in a symbiotic relationship_

It's regrettable that this inflammatory and one-sided language is one of the
top-voted comments on this thread right now. Not that the article is doing a
whole lot better in this regard, but there really is some need for nuance
here. NIH and DIY are not necessarily bad words.

Personally, I believe the federated concept of the web could benefit from some
major de-siloization, as could certain content creators and users. In an era
where the vast majority of all user-produced content is owned by Facebook and
Google, plus some minor players like Medium, at least _consider_ going with a
more independent alternative. However, it's also clear this is not a viable
option for most people. But at least people should be aware of the trade-offs
they're basing their decisions on.

Yes, if you give ownership of your content to a silo, this will make it much
easier to attract and keep an audience. At the same time, content creators
need to know they're completely at the mercy of changing policies and shifting
product focus. Youtubers had to learn this the hard way in recent weeks.

It's not a popular opinion to have on HN, but I want to encourage everyone who
wants to put the time and effort in to host their own content. Know what
you're getting yourself into and make an informed decision.

------
mycloud
I think ownership here is not always bound to making money off it or a third
party making money off my content. There are various reasons like control over
content as well as privacy aspects, which all play into ownership. So the
Author only really does not like someone else making money off of his work it
seems.

I have my own reasons (lesser around monetization) and thus I'm hosting some
of the webservice I depend on on my own for some time now. Since I am not very
much into sysadmin things, I found [https://cloudron.io](https://cloudron.io)
recently which has served me quite well thus far. Looking forwards to
eventually get my email on that as well :-)

------
pharrlax
>If the content you write has inherent value, why not host it yourself?

Well for one thing, "inherent value" is never what attracts
readers/buyers/whoever, marketing is. So putting your content on a platform
that makes people more likely to see it is much more in alignment with certain
goals. And if you're considering putting articles on Medium, I'm guessing ad
revenue is not one of your goals.

------
drdaffey
This post makes no sense to me. Ghost offers paid hosting, Wordpress, for
example, can be self-hosted, but self-hosting is almost never SELF-hosting, as
in having your own actual servers at home. It's almost always a case of you
using a hosting company...this post just makes no sense to me.

~~~
tomhoward
The writer means you should publish your content under your own
brand/identity.

That is, your own domain name, website design/branding, etc.

The point is that if you create popular content but host it on Medium (or
Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Google Plus, or any other branded content platform),
you are giving that platform's brand free promotion, when you could be using
that exposure to better promote yourself.

The trade-offs are the cost of professional hosting, ensuring that the
platform you choose has enough capacity to handle any traffic spikes, and
designing/maintaining a site design that is as readable/usable as the
established platforms.

------
im_dario
Host your own content or at least pay the hosting. There is nothing wrong
about being hosted by a third party if its business model isn't exploiting
your data.

------
toomim
Ironically, the author's self-hosted website went down while trying to get out
his self-hosting message.

He should have just posted on medium.

------
majewsky
I don't think there's an inherent problem with other people making money out
of your content, as long as the playing field is fair. But I still self-host
for control over how much bullshit (ads, trackers, etc.) Is tacked onto my
content.

------
VT_Drew
In other words: Instead of hosting your content for free, pay Ghost to host
it!

~~~
OJFord
Or, instead of being a product, buy a product.

------
racl101
Doesn't work for YouTubers.

