> When there has to be a server that's being administrated by somebody
And that somebody can be you. There are Mastodon servers operated by individuals for their friends or their small company. Anyone can host a server with their own rules.
Though that will then open you up to legal liability, including for things that other people say (if their messages reach your server, even if you haven't personally seen them): https://denise.dreamwidth.org/91757.html
Being a user on someone else's server is much less legal risk. Using E2E software where nobody runs a server is much less legal risk. Running a one-person instance of Mastodon is the worst case for legal liability.
Even if you do that, you're still - legally speaking - liable for hosting all those federated messages.
IANAL, but my understanding is the most effective way to run your own server is to have it completely hidden, e.g. behind classic HTTP authentication so that nobody but you can even see it's a Mastodon server, and definitely can't see anything the server is ingesting, without first logging in.
Even then, if you're a resident of California, your server "collects and maintains personally identifiable information from a consumer residing in California who uses or visits" so you need a privacy policy for yourself, legally speaking. See how much work it is to be legally compliant with laws that never really considered your use-case but apply to you anyway?
> liable for hosting all those federated messages.
Mastodon do not permanently stores these messages. They are cached, and evicted after some time. I linked to a video some time ago, and now that link is unreachable because it's expired.
The URL contained "/cache/", and I didn't understand what it meant until my video died.
That's true, but while they're cached, if someone else could see them, they're hosted, and you're liable for hosting them.
I understand that Mastodon has a "local feed", and even if you're its sole user, if you don't block anonymous readers from access, that means someone could technically see a message by someone else that you're subscribed to, take umbrage at it, and sue you for making it available on your server, even temporarily.
From what I've seen of Mastodon, it does seem possible to block access to the server's local feed, but I don't know that for sure.
In addition to the local feed, there's also what you personally boost. I'm not sure how one strikes a balance, and if the software is still usable, if you were to hide the main URL for your feed (at least, the URL so that visitors from the web can read your feed on your server). Would it still be possible to participate in conversations, would people still be able to subscribe to you?
> Would it still be possible to participate in conversations, would people still be able to subscribe to you?
Yes. I follow several remote users who default to "unlisted" posts. (To be honest, I don't know if they're unlisted or follower-only posts -- I can't tell.)
Yes, I know this. But it feels overkilling to host a server which is capable of hosting thousands of users just for me alone. I'd like something small, dedicated just for my own usage. Kind of a way to have my RSS feed discoverable and commentable.
I run my own Mastodon instance and it's definitely heavy and unoptimized for this use case. That seems to be a common theme with Ruby on Rails applications, to be honest.
There are lighter clients that will integrate perfectly into Fediverse/Mastodon networks, though, such as GoToSocial (https://gotosocial.org/) with its light and low-tech UI.
Many Mastodon alternatives expose a Mastodon API so that you can use the standard Mastodon apps with them, even if you're not really hosting Mastodon itself.
Modern software deployment methods can fill the gap between your selfhosted need and the work to be done. I won't name technologies here, because existing have its flaws (docker, helm, etc).
Mastodon is federated and thus basically fulfills your whish. IMO "decentralized Web3" such as IPFS may rempve that need for classical "hosts" but at the costs of an entrance barrier for users (have to install that client).
And that somebody can be you. There are Mastodon servers operated by individuals for their friends or their small company. Anyone can host a server with their own rules.