I also love my Synology DS-218+. I'm hosting my own Spotify (Airsonic [1]); music tagged to perfection with Beets [2]), an IRC bouncer because Matrix is still not ready, my own Netflix (Synology's Video Station [3]), and my own mailserver (Synology's MailPlus Server [4]). I've been giving out access to this pod to close friends. It's empowering and community-building. This is the kind of social network I desire: close-knit around the warm glow of a server.
It's really self-host heaven. I don't pay for Fastmail, Spotify, or video streaming anymore.
I have an older Synology. It is already ready for the masses.
Why: You only need one one for a family and most of the time there's already a person in the family who does "PC stuff". And even if there isn't there's always someone who'll learn it if a friend has one.
The rest of this post is not targeted at you but rather on a whole attitude here at HN:
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Anyone who can operate a web browser, has any education in IT and knows enough English to read instructions in the box should be able to set up one.
In fact I think just being able to read the quick start instructions should be enough to install one with basic features.
Setting up websites in the 90ies - early 2000s were a lot harder. Same goes for using older PCs with DOS.
A major problem today seems to be learned helplessnes. In our well meant and to some degree profitable[0] effort to make sure anyone can use anything we have are creating a situation were people are more helpless .
Seriously: if app stores and walled gardens had been introduced first the web and email had been considered to complicated now. I can imagine HN: """You mean my siblings, parents and grandparents are going to install this "e-mail" thing? Even if they were able to configure "smtp" and whatnot they'd forget the "email address" or even how to start it before tomorrow."""
[0:]: if anyone doesn't catch my drift, your brightest customers might not be the ones who pays most ;-)
> most of the time there's already a person in the family who does "PC stuff". And even if there isn't there's always someone who'll learn it if a friend has one.
That's not true at all. Confirmation bias is rough when you're technical; you keep spotting other technical people.
Was about to disagree strongly with your conclusion but you have a point. Not everyone had a web site.
But I'm not totally convinced either: email has been huge despite the configuration needed, also with people who had to take it step by step twice and make notes while doing it. Some figured it out on their own (or more realistically using the step by instructions that came bundled with their first modem). Other had a son or a grandson who'd picked it up at school. Others got it at work.
My grandparents where the youngest group of people I can think of that didn't have access to email somehow.
And my wifes grandparents have/had access to mail and used actual mail clients too, not just Hotmail or Gmail.
Though its not really simple enough for non-technical people to set up.