The Fediverse Desperately Needs Sustainable File Hosting

    Before delving into this topic, I feel I should briefly explain what the fediverse is. You know how a Gmail account can send an email to an Outlook account? That's because email uses a standard, open protocol. Anybody can run an email server and send emails to other email servers. The fediverse is the collection of social media services that operate on those same principles. For example, anybody can run a Mastodon (Twitter-like) server, and their toots (tweets) will be shared with other servers and vice versa. The fediverse is awesome. It's a lovely response to the myriad of problems that come with centralized social media. However, it has some major challenges, which brings me to the topic of this blog. 

    The fediverse has a file hosting problem. Files, especially images and videos, are a core part of social media. When a user uploads a file to a centralized social network, its backed by the platform's extensive server infrastructure. These companies make huge investments to store and serve files at scale because keeping users engaged on their platform is profitable. Fediverse servers, on the other hand, are typically run by individuals without a profit motive. They're focused on serving their community and the greater good of the network. As a result, the average server has very limited resources yet still needs to deal with the scale of social media. Consequently, files uploaded to fediverse servers often load very slowly—or sometimes fail to load at all—when they receive high traffic across the network.

    Unfortunately, this issue goes beyond just file availability. Storing and serving files is sometimes the biggest expense of running a fediverse server. It's a cost that grows indefinitely, and donations from supportive users can only sustain it for so long. So what happens when expenses get out of hand? Server operators shut down the server. The recent shutdown of the botsin.space server highlights this issue well.

Server closures in the fediverse are far from ideal. Users of that server lose their accounts, all files uploaded to the server are deleted, and the fediverse as a whole loses a chunk of its history.

    We know that uploading files to fediverse servers is bad for both users and server operators. So, what can we do about it? The most obvious solution is to upload the files to a third-party file host. Given the tech-savvy nature of fediverse users, it's no surprise that many already do this. However, I'm often puzzled by how many users rely on third-party file hosts with significant issues, often similar to those affecting the fediverse itself.

    The most common "solution" is to upload to free third-party file host. Truly free file hosts experience the same challenges as many fediverse servers: they often struggle to meet peak demand and face growing bills that donations alone cannot cover indefinitely. This is unsustainable and leads to services shutting down, forcing monetization, or deleting files. Forced monetization sounds acceptable in theory, but historically, free file hosts often implement it through intrusive ads, viruses, user data sales, or by deleting every file not backed by a paid account. File hosts that aren’t sustainable from the start face a challenging transition to sustainability, and most either end up operating unethically or shutting down.

    The other type of “free” file hosts aren’t truly free. Imgur is a perfect example. People try to use it as a file host, but it’s actually a centralized social network that harvests and sells user data to shovel ads. It’s strange that so many fediverse users rely on platforms like Imgur, which embody the very issues they’re trying to escape. Additionally, Imgur is well known for deleting files it deems “old, unused, or not tied to an account.”

    What about paid solutions? I haven't found any particularly compelling options in this space. There are some complex issues in the file hosting space that I will explain in a future post. Most paid file hosts are not actually for file hosting; they're just for file storage and sharing with screened in users. The few that I found for file hosting specifically either have ridiculously high prices or additional "features" like pushing all of the files into a social network. The one big exception—and I’m sure many of you have already thought of this—is cloud providers like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and DigitalOcean. I’m skeptical these are viable options for the average person, though. Properly configuring an S3 bucket with a CDN is frustrating with most cloud providers. DigitalOcean makes it easier, but its tools are still designed with developers in mind, making the experience of using it as a consumer file host cumbersome. Bandwidth pricing can also introduce anxiety. As with botsin.space, there’s always the fear that bots could consume excessive bandwidth, resulting in a huge bill.

    This has been my mindset for quite some time while interacting with the fediverse. I know I need to host my own files to be a responsible member of the community, but I was frustrated by the lack of simple, ethical, and sustainable options for my peers. So, I set out to create my own file host, which is now available on this website. My goal was to make the simplest solution possible, guided by a commitment to long-term sustainability. I believe I’ve created something that achieves that. I recognize it’s far from perfect, but I’ll continue to improve it. I hope you’ll find it useful, too.

    If you're a fediverse user, I encourage you to find a sustainable way to host your files. It doesn’t have to be Evergreen Files, but I suspect that if you compare it to the alternatives, you’ll appreciate what I’ve built. If not, I’d be happy to hear from you. One of the benefits of being a small business is that I can offer dedicated customer support to everyone.

Some things that sets Evergreen Files apart from the competition: