Just a quick add: even for my self hosted services, I configure Postfix with Mailgun for SMTP relay for alerts and whatnot just to ensure delivery to my external mail provider.

Edit: a few words for clarity

Just passing along what I've read many times: that self hosting email can be difficult. Particularly sending, because the large providers tend to treat email from less known sources with more skepticism (such as by marking as spam), even with properly configured SPF and DKIM.

And if your server is down, you may miss any incoming mail for the duration. I don't know if other providers would try resending after a period of time if the receiver is unreachable, but I doubt it (just an educated guess).

I love self hosting services but email is something I've decided not to touch with a ten foot pole.

I dunno, they're eyeing you like YOU might be on the menu before long.

+1 for Fastmail.

I've been using it for about 3 years. I'm on the Standard plan (middle tier). It's $4.20/mo. per user when prepaying for 3 years and ranges up to $5.40/mo. for monthly billing.

Not sure if there's a (practical) limit on domains or aliases, but I have 7 domains and a few aliases plus a wildcard. Includes 30GB of storage per user.

I read "server" as computer server and was really confused...

The "collapse" of the government in a parliamentary system means the government no longer commands the confidence of a majority of the (typically) lower house, in this case the House of Representatives. Nothing immediate happens, although the prime minister may (or may not) resign, a "caretaker" government takes over until a new elections are held.

Here, it sounds like one of the four coalition parties has pulled out due to disagreeemnt over immigration, which the coalition parties had never agreed on.

Thanks, that's good info. If I do go forward, I was planning on going the Ansible route, though I've never used it before.

I've read that it can take a bit of time to sync when you first federate, but that after some period of time it gets closer to real-time with posts and comments.

According to the lemmy.world Instances page, lemmygrad.ml is linked, not blocked. I know it's blocked on a number of other instances.

I'm glad that worked. I'm considering launching a personal self-hosted instance of my own, so I may be in your shoes soon enough.

How did you find the process? Did you use Docker or Ansible?

Have you tried searching for the communities first? As I understand it from some other posts, if you try to access a remote community via URL through your home instance before it "knows" about it, you'll get the 404 error. Someone (you) on your instance has to make your instance "aware" of the remote community by searching for it first. Then, after your instance is aware of the community and federating it, you can access it via URL as you posted above.

You're right that historically there has been one dominant player at a time, and that it is typically in a period of stagnation or complacency when something new comes along to initiate the shift to the next player.

Social networks are great examples of natural monopolies, largely due to the aforementioned network effect. Without a large, diverse user base they tend to become echo chambers.

But you helpfully point out that there are other new players in the market, to the point that a successful reddit may not be necessary to spur competition for the next great thing.

I agree that's a plausible scenario, and maybe even most likely given the pattern of history. And I understand and appreciate that you're not hoping or advocating for that outcome, but highlighting its likelihood.

I also agree with your sentiment that the fediverse seems like a game-changer, particularly in the area of free speech.