Here’s my situation: I’m somewhat advanced in my career. I’ve been working in media for over a decade. I’m currently unemployed and looking for more work, but I haven’t been finding a lot of success. And the truth is that most of the media jobs available to me are deeply uninspiring: the kinds of producing/shooting/editing roles that I’ve done for a long time, and that no longer bring me joy.

But there’s one thing that HAS gotten me excited over the last few years: Learning more about self-hosting and FOSS. Since ~2021 I’ve been on a journey, building my own computers, setting up my own home server, changing my workflow over to FOSS apps, and slowly moving more of my devices to Linux. I love the idea of using my skills to break up the power of tech giants and their consumer lock-in. This is political for me, and I love it.

Is there any way that I could transition my career to something along those lines? I’m not experienced or knowledgeable enough to be a systems admin. But is there some role I could perform that would let me pursue this passion, learn more about it, and get paid?

Sorry if I’m mistaken on this, but I’m still new to self-hosting.

Currently I use SyncThing and I love it. My files are accessible to me wherever I am in the world, and it costs me nothing.

I’d like to move more of my life to self-hosted servers. I’m looking at leaving Spotify for Funkwhale. But if I’m reading the materials correctly, I’ll need to set up a domain and pay some upfront costs to make my library accessible outside my home.

Why is that? Is there a way to make my costs 0, the way they are with SyncThing?