There's a recent trend towards homesteading—people fed up with the grind of a modern economic existence going back to their roots, growing food, raising animals, self-sufficiency… you know, canning and stuff.

It's a romantic and appealing idea! You're working for yourself, trusting what's in your food and knowing where it came from. You have agency. You have power. Oh and you might save some money along the way too.

There's a problem though. It turns out living as a farmer is a lot of work. You forfeit the gains from specialization that our entire economic system is built upon. So as romantic and appealing as it may be, a homesteading lifestyle is not realistic for most.

The rules of the digital world are different however. Scarcity does not apply in the same way—through sharing, one person's work to make themselves more self-sufficient can help others do the same.

There's never been better software and guidance for self-hosting than there is now. Immich, Jellyfin, Syncthing, Nextcloud, the list goes on and on.

It's now possible to greatly increase your digital self-sufficiency without having to do the digital equivalent of moving to a farm upstate, never to be seen by your friends and family again. You can live and work digitally like a "normal" person without having to rely on the graces (and subscription pricing) of Google or Apple.

Best of all, you can take your friends and family with you along your journey. Or you can help take the whole world with you by contributing and sharing online.

Digital homesteading does have some of the downsides of traditional homesteading. It's more work. It's more responsibility.

But it's achievable. I just takes putting in some effort then you're there—working for yourself, trusting what's in your software and knowing where it came from. You have agency. You have power. Oh and you might save some money along the way too.