The problem with outsourcing your chat or forum to third parties is that you don't own them. That is correct
The problem with self hosting those things yourself is that 1. nobody will use them because why aren't you just using this 3rd party app that everyone is already using and 2. have fun doing your own spam control
Seems like a bit of a damned if you do damned if you don't situation if you ask me
@eniko Yep, absolutely. And I reckon as software developers we should already be familiar with the idea that we're always building on foundations owned by someone else.
It sucks, but then so does etching our own transistors into sand.
Like yeah sure hosting all your own stuff is great in principle but let's take gamedev, something I am particularly familiar with
If I host my games on my own site browsers like Chrome will scream "this is a file that isn't regularly downloaded ARE YOU SURE??" at anyone who tries to download them, with a very scary interface. There's jack and also shit I can do about this. So most lay people just... won't download my games from my own site
I then also need to sign my binaries which is bullshit to start with but if I put my games on Steam or itch and people use their launchers it's always fine
I also also do not receive any of the passive traffic afforded to me by those platforms so slash the proportion of people who manage to download and run my games again by a factor of 1000 because of lack of discoverability
So in summary you should definitely self host video games if you wanna make sure literally nobody will ever play them
Like yeah it would be cool if we could all just self host all our stuff and have full control over all of it but unfortunately we do, in fact, live in a society. And there are many interlocking systems arrayed against self hosting and just telling people to do it anyway will never succeed unless something is done about those systems
@eniko Also, turns out self hosting doesn't solve a lot of problems. It's basically only data ownership. I used to run my own email and still run my own ftp, and that shit is a nightmare.
@eniko Personally, I think it's critically important to make the distinction between "It's a bad idea to self-host things for intrinsic reasons" and "It's a bad idea to self-host things in the society we live in" because if we operate from the former we've given up but if we operate from the latter we (as a society) can choose to change the conditions we operate under.
And often we end up talking past each other because of this distinction.
@akjcv I agree with this but way too much of this discussion is phrased like "if everyone just adopted self hosting all our problems will be solved" rather than saying anything about changing the underlying conditions that cause self hosting to be such a poor option
@eniko@akjcv No it doesn't solve any problems, many years ago we did, we had the SW you could have downloaded from our site and we used to have a forum ( that we took down because I could NOT spend 24/24/7/7 dealing with SPAM/hackers/etc. ) . In essence "visibility near 0" as you say "if you don't are/use what all the other people - customers - use you are NO ONE!". And "who owns those apps/media/sites knows it very well" that's why they can play developers "as they like" 😐 The problem CONT.
@eniko@akjcv CONT. is that many people "follow a lot the hype, are creatures of habit and for whatever reason seems to love some platforms/apps 'too much' " .. I hate it as well, but sometime "it also gives you some protection from a lot of crap" plus it may give you some visibility that you can NOT obtain with your sole means. It's not a perfect world, far from it, but I am not sure if/how we could make it change. I mean technically "yeah I can put my games there instead of here" ... BUT CONT.
@eniko@akjcv CONT. "Are people going to follow all that ?" .. and if not WHY not ? What can be done ? As I said doing self-host IS DOABLE, you can do it, but then you also need to process orders/returns/support/accounting/PAYMENTS all stuff that takes a CONSIDERABLE burden technically and legally. If giving X% to someone removes me from all that AND guarantees me VISIBILITY that I can't get it's not a too bad deal really.
@gilesgoat@akjcv i mean you can use shopping cart software to help with all that but at that point why wouldn't i just host my game on itch.io and use their buy widget
@eniko@akjcv "itch.io" is "itch.io" even if I never used it it's a name that even I know 😄 So it's Steam and PSN store or such .. "those are the big names that everyone knows" you can just say "my games are in there" you don't even need to give a link out .. That's the point.
@eniko If you have any further discussions or articles about self hosting games vs itch.io in terms of discoverability I'd love to see them. I'm going to have to decide in the next few months which route I will take for my game, but so far I'm leaning toward itch since I don't have a website or domain yet.
@oblomov@eniko@spots1000 Does anybody remember when Humble Bundle was still a legit thing and they gave you a Steam key and. Desirability key? Does anybody remember Desura? 😌
@eniko@oblomov@spots1000 It wouldn't surprise me. I try to afford the benefit of the doubt to anyone trying to stand up to the big guys [Steam], but odds are against them and a lot of folks will try to do it without understanding how a business works and that rarely ends pretty. 😩
@eniko Umm, I'm confused now when you said the exact opposite in the comment I replied to. You said that self hosting is the only viable option, but now you're telling me not to self host?
If I host my games on my own site browsers like Chrome will scream "this is a file that isn't regularly downloaded ARE YOU SURE??"
This should only happen if the file hasn't been downloaded much and is either unsigned, or signed with a new codesigning certificate (the more your file is downloaded, the more reputation it gets; if the file is unsigned, the file itself is collecting reputation; if it's signed, the reputation applies to the certificate instead, so all downloads signed with the same certificate will count).
Unfortunately, the price of codesigning certificates seems to have trippled in the last few years – $188 for a 3-year certificate in '21, €485 two months ago…
@jernej__s I mean, saying "this should only happen if the file isn't downloaded much" in a situation where the file will be downloaded far less often isnt super helpful, especially if updates resets the whole thing
I guess you could get around that by hosting a downloader that never changes but you have none of these issues if you put your stuff on itch or steam, which is exactly my point