A VPS, a domain, one command. That's the ideal. Most self-hosting guides still assume you know what nginx is or how to renew Let's Encrypt certificates. Good self-hosting means the admin enters their domain, gets SSL, TURN, SFU, and updates for free — without ever editing a config file. We're close. Not there yet. But close.

Everyone's rediscovering that putting everything on one megacorp server has downsides. Federation isn't a magic cure but it changes the incentive structure. When you host your own data, the platform has to earn its place every day. The tricky part: making federation disappear from the user's view. Nobody should know what "ActivityPub" is to send a message. The plumbing has to be invisible.

Most "decentralized" networks end up with three servers in a rack and call it federation. The engineering hard problems aren't the protocol — they're onboarding, discovery, and trust. Here's what I learned building one. First principle: every node must be able to run without any central service. If your DNS goes down, can Alice still reach Bob? If the index dies, can a new node ever be found? Second: the user never thinks about federation. They type an address, see a name, send a message. The network topology is invisible.