This is awesome! I recently switched over to Kagi because of several Lemmy posts mentioning it as an alternative. However, I really appreciate you sharing your preferred SearXNG instance. I have it added to my browser’s list of search engines and may switch to it from time-to-time to see how different it is from Kagi. If there really isn’t much of a difference, then I may switch to it after my Kagi membership ends.
Do you anticipate your instance eventually growing to the point where you would have to outsource your hosting and start taking donations to cover the cost? And do you believe donations would be enough to pay off the costs, given the voluntary and variable nature of donations? What is your opinion of using ads to cover the cost of hosting?
That’s an interesting analogy!
It would appear that the overall nature of the Fediverse is to have numerous small instances that can communicate with each other, and since instance size is a factor in determining the cost of hosting, many people could host without seeing a huge chunk of their income being taken away for hosting.
Of course, I would imagine other factors that would determine whether someone should host or not, like having the technical competence necessary to troubleshoot server issues.
If we do have some instances running ads, wouldn’t that run counter to the goals of the Fediverse? It’s my understanding that much of the migration from Big Tech platforms to Fediverse platforms is to escape the intrusive nature of ads and to prevent the Big Tech companies from taking user data and giving it to advertisers, something that is a major privacy concern these days.
I would certainly be up for Ideas 3 and 5.
You’re absolutely right about PeerTube. However, given the recent decisions made by YouTube and its parent company on adblocking, I think we might see a surge in PeerTube content and development soon.
One thing I have noticed in the past year is that whenever Big Tech services become compromised or make controversial decisions, the Fediverse equivalent starts to bloom. I joined Mastodon and Lemmy earlier this year because of the controversies surrounding X and Reddit. Now that YouTube has done the same, I think we will soon see a “great migration” to PeerTube.
Just my two cents.