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The fuck? You know self-hosting is classed as a hobby, right?
Never, EVER get into a hobby expecting some sort of monetary return. The only real “return” of any hobby is all the aspects of enjoying said hobby.
If you’re not enjoying it, why are you even doing it?
Idk, I’d have a pretty good return if I my mom didn’t want to use Netflix still. Even after paying for indexers, Usenet providers, storage and electricity. I’m using a discarded laptop with a HDD dock tho, which is plenty for my needs (mostly 1080p movies with 4k for my absolute favorites or new releases which I can then downgrade or delete though I haven’t had the need to do so yet)
There is still the topic of power usage, data usage, time spent doing maintenance, and accounting for failing hardware and hardware upgrades.
Thankfully I have a pretty low wattage setup and an unmetered full duplex fiber optic connection. Won’t disagree on the hardware (all my homies hate Seagate) and maintenance. I don’t do a lot, but it sure can derail half my day.
If you’re not enjoying it, why are you even doing it?
Me trying te migrate away from handcrafted quadletr running on a NAS without backup to a k3s on a mini pc but always overthinking the shit since 6 months
This is neat, and I see that lots of folks are getting a good look at their laid out setup costs. However, you should stop using project management budget coding words. Also:
- You are confusing roi with payback period.
- There are intangible factors to consider like command of your data, control over security, etc.
- Opex and capex are values used for fixed-term projects, they aren’t meant to quantify ongoing efforts past project outset.
- Hardware is absolutely NOT a “one-time purchase”. If you are amortizing the cost of equipment, you must include projected failure rates, particularly for disks. Please refer to green-cycling.
- Information projects are different than physical processing projects because they “expire”, meaning your i5-7200 is OK now, but will likely be nearly useless in 2030 when everyone is pretty much moved to 4k.
Well it’s a pretty good start (and I do agree with you on using the appropriate terminology). I’ve had to look at it differently and use it with the ideas only head being misrepresented on screen. Still the idea is great.
Sounds like you’d be a great co-conspirator for OP to really make this project exceptional.
Jeez, i re-read my answer and I always come across more severe than I wanted.
It’s definitely a good milestone for someone potentially getting carried away with buying gear, if only to stop and figure out what one is trying to accomplish. And I say this as a person who worked in it for 25 yrs and has waaay too much gear.
I think the ROI for my server is something like 6-7 years, not counting the electricity it uses. I don’t do it to save money but to gain independence, which is good because realistically it will never break even.
I asked a friend who owns a small plane whether it saves money vs. flying commercial, and the answer was no way, it’s for the freedom, convenience, and love of aviation. Realistically, self-hosting is the same, albeit a lot cheaper.
That being said, I wouldn’t mind having a runway in my back yard with a steel building to store a small plane, although the stakes are lower if you forget to maintain your server.
Break-even in: Never
Nice, my hardware is doing pretty good! :3
Well, I don’t have any subscriptions, and most of my equipment I got from an IT guy I’ve known for many years, so I guess my ROI is calculated differently
I’m usint old hardware I have around anyway and electricity is part of my rent. But I also don’t use any paid subscription service or did before I had my server.
Maybe the calculator wasn’t made for me lol
How to factor in independence from BigTech and privacy gained?
Puh, ziemlich fokussiert auf Video. Ich ersetze damit mehr meinen Chat, Cloud-Office, Social Media… Aber der Return of Investment ist da weniger die Abo-Gebühr 😅
There is a box for manually added monthly savings. But yes, hard to classify what you would actually subscribe to if you would not have a server already.
But same for video. I would never buy 3 streaking service at a time.
But same for video. I would never buy 3 streaking service at a time.
This is an awesome sounding typo.
Kind of the reason why I quit Netflix. For once it got more expensive each year. And at some point there was less and less of my favorite shows on there, so I’d need to subscribe to a second service for Star Trek… then a third one for all the good stuff that’s Disney… And I don’t even watch that much TV. So instead, I just quit. Maybe one day I’m gonna read a book on a Friday evening 😆 Or the stuff the government forces me to pay for.
Ooof. 47 months. I should rethink my setup.
This is merely ROI, it doesn’t capture things like watching what you want.
I started from needing a server for mobile devices to sync to, music, general file storage, and some virtual machines for testing stuff.
That put me at about 1TB. I already had a bunch of DVDs that I wanted to watch more conveniently, so I just upped the stotage and started converting my own stuff.
So my setup isn’t just for media/replacing subscriptions - that a knocks on effect.
Still this is a nice calculator for me to better visualize what things actually cost.
:]
Hosted Server + VPN: 21,89 €
Replacing Subscriptions worth: 29,97 €Instantly worth it.
But I only have 2TB of storage, so nothing is archived and the server isn’t strong enough to stream to more than one device, so no sharing with anyone else, this is exactly why I am thinking about switching to self-hosting as soon as my ISP has completed laying fiber in my street.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters Git Popular version control system, primarily for code IP Internet Protocol NAS Network-Attached Storage VPN Virtual Private Network
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 7 acronyms.
[Thread #45 for this comm, first seen 30th Jan 2026, 13:10] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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