In today’s world there seems to be no reason why anyone can’t build and deploy anything. With the proliferation of all sorts of PaaS and SaaS services to abstract the developer further and further away from the metal, the pace at which new ideas can be made available to the masses is insane.

Multiply that by the fact that everyone building new software is using AI agents to help them 10x their productivity, the only thing that matters at the moment is to ship it, fast!

So why would you, with all these wonderful options available today that most would only dream of 10 years ago, host anything yourself?

My biggest reason is learning. And then all the benefits compounded after.

Having to keep something alive by on your own forces you to learn how things work.

This understanding is not only useful to keep things running in your own server. It also helps you understand how these shiny paid services are made, what value they provide to you, and if they are worth it at all.

Not too long ago, most households would have someone who knew how to paint, fix a water leak, build a new wall, or replace the floor. Understanding how these things are done will set you up for success. Help you not get scammed. Maybe you choose to do one of them yourself. Or when you pay someone, you know how to check they did it properly.

I’m not suggesting you should host absolutely everything you need to make available online. But host something. Host your little blog. Get a cheap VPS* somewhere and install that Nginx. Or that Traefik. Point your domain’s DNS records there. Get those Lets Encrypt certificates. Maybe run the whole thing in Docker containers. And small tip: when you ask your AI agent to give you the commands to run on the server: ask it to explain step by step as well.

I promise you when all is running, and over time as you update it, you will understand basics of Linux, Webservers, Network routing / Load balancing, SSL certificates, DNS, Docker.

This experience will make you a better engineer.